


The Age of Imagination and Experience

by iberiandoctor (Jehane)



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: 19th Century New York, Alternate Universe, Future Fic, Gilded Age, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:01:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28193616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jehane/pseuds/iberiandoctor
Summary: "Ah – to have that kind of innocence, the innocence that seals the mind against imagination and the heart against experience!"A Gilded Age,The Age of InnocenceAU.
Relationships: Oliver/Elio Perlman, Oliver/Michol
Comments: 52
Kudos: 46
Collections: CMBYN December Fest 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for CMBYN December Fest, 2020. Prompts: the holidays, a glimpse into the future.
> 
> Many thanks to raspberryhunter for the beta! CW for infidelity and late 19th C. period-typical language and attitudes toward homosexuality and bisexuality.

_New York, December 190___

Oliver Newland, senior partner of Letterblair, Low & Newland, attorneys-at-law to three generations of New York gentility, sat at the writing-table in his library in the family brownstone on East Thirty-Ninth Street.

He had just returned from an official reception for the inauguration of the new galleries at the Metropolitan Museum: where the full flood of Manhattan society circulating through the rooms of carefully curated treasures had suddenly awakened an old flutter of memory.

"Why, I believe this used to be one of the Liguria rooms," one of the Board of Trustees had exclaimed, and instantly, everything around Oliver had vanished, and he was standing alone in the middle of a dimly-illuminated corridor of the old museum, with long Italian windows casting squares of dull winter sunlight across the floor, while a slight figure in a long grey coat moved away from him, walking from light to shade, light to shade, growing smaller and dimmer and more distant until it vanished from sight entirely.

The vision of that figure, now more than twenty-four years old, had aroused with it a host of other associations: some of them pleasurable, more of them painful, and all of them so vivid they drowned out the present with their invincible summer and the winter that had come after, vanquishing everything in its path. 

Somehow, Oliver managed to return home in the falling snow, where now he sat looking with new eyes around his library. It had recently been done over by young Ollie in English mezzotints and Chippendale cabinets; past gloomy family portraits of Archers and Newlands and van de Luydens had been replaced by a modern Charles Webster Hawthorne, bits of chosen blue-and-white, and pleasantly shaded electric lamps; the bronze and steel statuettes of "The Fencers" on the mantelpiece were now bedecked with festive red paper for the coming holiday season. 

For over twenty years, this place had been the scene of his solitary musings, and had overseen the transition of his world, hauling it unceremoniously from its old New York circumscriptions and obfuscations into the unblinkered glare of this new century. 

In this room, his wife had blushingly broken to him the news that they were to have a child, with the sort of hesitant, old-fashioned circumlocution that modern listeners might have laughed disbelievingly at; here, Ollie Junior had taken his first steps, shrugging off the protective hands of Michele and his nurse, and pitching himself across the floor towards "Da-da!". In this room, he and Michele had always discussed the most important Newland and Mingott family matters — from carefully selected holiday presents and travels abroad to the children’s studies and achievements, and then, as the children grew older, the pursuit of their various paths and careers in life.

Their three children — heirs to the Newland library and conservatory, to the Mingott estates — had bound their family together. Restless, curious Ollie, whose leanings toward art and chamber music had finally led to a placement with the office of a rising New York architectural firm; sports-loving May, very like Michele in so many ways, but nonetheless of a far more liberal world view than ever dreamed of by her mother; little Bill, whose own feats of sportsmanship looked set to rival those of his sister. When they were born, and while they were growing up, they had filled up the corners of his and Michele’s life, with hard work, with laughter and levity, and — now they were mostly grown — with that ultimate reward: the future. 

During the golden years spent raising them, Oliver supposed he had been what was called a faithful husband. When Michele had suddenly died not two years ago — carried off by the infectious pneumonia through which she had nursed their youngest child — he had honestly mourned her. Their years together had shown him that it did not so much matter if marriage was a dull duty, as long as it kept the dignity of a duty. Were it to lapse from respectability, from responsibility, it would have become a mere battle of appetites, of self-centeredness, of lies and shabbiness and deceit. There was much that was good in some of those old ways, after all: there was honor there, and dignity.

And if there was one thing that had marked Oliver Newland’s life, it had been dignified duty. He had spent a year in the State Assembly at the invitation of the then Governor of New York, who had come down from Albany one evening to dine; he had been re-elected once, after which he had dropped back thankfully into obscure if useful municipal work, as well as his legal practice. Oliver would not count what he had done by way of public life to be extensive, but even these small contributions to society, and the new order in that society, had seemed to count in a small way, as each brick contributed to a solidly-constructed house. 

He might even admit to being what people were beginning to call "an upstanding citizen". As New York had approached the turn of the century, and crossed it, new movements in the philanthropic and municipal and artistic arena had increasingly taken account of his opinion and wanted his name — be there a question of opening a new school for under-privileged children, or reorganizing the Museum of Art, or endowing a new chair in philosophy at the New York University, whose admissions were based upon merit rather than birth-right or social class. 

His days were occupied, in an occupation that was decent. He supposed it was all a man could ask for.

Something Oliver supposed he might have missed: the flower of life. But in the rare occasions when he had thought as much, fleetingly, over the years, he might have concluded that this was a thing so unattainable and improbable that, to have regretted it would have been like despairing over not having drawn the first prize in one of the many lotteries that had sprung up over the country. As with those lotteries, finally outlawed, there had been millions of tickets and thousands spent in lobbying in vain and only one prize, and as such the chances had been too decidedly against him ever to have won it. 

And so had it been that when he thought of the young Count Olenski, it was abstractly, calmly, as one might think of some imaginary beloved in a book or a picture. As one might think of longed-for, luminous Carlo in Verdi’s virtuoso five-act masterpiece; as the Toledo knight in the Decameron, who had asked his lover if he should speak or die; as Ganymede, depicted aloft in eagle’s wings by Rubens or on red-figure krater in Athens or by Pierre Laviron in lithe marble at Versailles. In a hundred different portrayals, Elio had become the composite vision of everything that Oliver had missed. That vision, faint and tenuous as it had grown over the years, had kept him from thinking of anything other than faithfulness, than honor, than duty.

Thanks to this evening’s chance visit to the old Liguria rooms, though, that vision was now no longer faint or tenuous. Once more, Elio’s countenance was vivid in his mind’s eye: as he had first seen it in the early spring, under the low lights of the Manson-Mingotts’ shabby red and gold box at the Academy of Music in New York, transformed by Christine Nilssen’s soprano and the free air of the land of his birth; as Oliver had last seen it, pale and drawn and already withdrawing from him, seemingly for ever, in the heart of a winter so much more chilling than this one. It had been more than twenty-four years, and yet that narrow face and those dark eyes were suddenly as real to him as this room, as the silver-framed photographs of Michele and the children on his writing-table, filling him with an emotion so foreign that he could not immediately think of the name for it.

The telephone clicked, rescuing Oliver from his thoughts. Turning from his photographs, he unhooked the transmitter at his elbow and held it to his ear. How far they had come from the days when the legs of the brass-buttoned messenger boy had been New York's fastest means of communication!

"Ohio wants you."

Ah, it must be a long-distance telephone call from young Ollie, who had been sent to Ohio by his firm to talk over the plan of the palace in Akron that they were to build for a tycoon in the developing retail tire industry. These days, the firm always sent Ollie on such errands.

"Hallo, Dad — Yes, it’s me, it’s Ollie. Yes, I’ll be back by Saturday! I know Bill has the weekend from Columbia Prep, I want to spend the time with you and him and May at home together.”

Oliver smiled into the transmitter. Ollie seemed to be speaking in the room: the voice was as near by and natural as if he had been lounging in his favorite arm-chair by the fire. The holiday season was nearly upon them, and his boys would be home, and all would be as it had been in the good old days, despite Michele’s absence.

The voice began again. “I say — how do you feel about sailing with me to Europe on Wednesday? The good ship Mauretania. Our client wants me to look at some classic Italian villas before we settle anything, and has asked me to nip over on the next boat after the holidays. I've got to be back on the fifteenth —" the voice broke into a joyful laugh — "so we must look alive. I say, Dad: do come."

Oliver paused, somewhat taken aback. Long-distance telephoning had become as much a matter of course in their new world as electric lighting and five-day Atlantic voyages. But young Ollie’s laugh startled him; booming across all those miles and miles of country— forest and river, mountain and prairie, frost and snow and more temperate climes, burgeoning cities and teeming thousands upon thousands, all roaring and indifferent and on the cusp of the future — Ollie's laugh seemed to say: _Of course, whatever happens, I must get back on the fifteenth, because on the twentieth of the month I am to be married to Fenella Beaumont, the orphaned heir of Julius Beaumont, disgraced financier and Argentinian émigré_. 

Oliver had to marvel at it: such was this brave new world that Julius’ ancient scandal — which would have sounded the death knell to any young person’s reputation in old New York — had passed lightly over the happy couple as something entirely divorced from this modern day and age.

Oliver asked, “You want me to come with you to Italy? Wouldn’t I just be in the way —?” 

"Not in the least, sir. And not just to Italy — the last time we were in Europe, May and Bill wanted mountain-climbing in Mont Blanc instead of Rheims and Chartres! And when Mother suggested you and I go to France for a fortnight, and join them on the Italian lakes after they’d ‘done’ Switzerland, you told her we would stick together instead. So this time we’re going to go on the trip we should have taken then, and see the French cathedrals, and Versailles.”

“I remember; your mother and I were proud of how good you were about it,” Oliver smiled, and his boy said briskly: 

“Well then, you've got to say yes. There’s not a single reason to allege why not — the firm will tick along without you. May has the wedding well enough in hand, Fanny has said she’s thrilled to leave every last thing to her. And, I say, Dad; it'll be our last time together, in this kind of way; just the two of us. You know what I mean?”

Oliver knew the boy was right, of course. They would have lots of other such times after Ollie’s marriage, for the two of them were born comrades, and young Fenella Beaumont, whatever old New York society might think of her, did not seem likely to threaten their intimacy; on the contrary, from what he had seen of her, he thought Fanny might be naturally included in it. Still, change was change, and much as he felt himself drawn toward his future daughter-in-law, it was tempting to seize this last chance of being alone with his eldest child, his pride and joy.

“Yes, then, yes, all right,” he said, and Ollie gave out a little cheer.

“Then it’s a go, eh? One last thing, and I’ll ring off. It’s not just cathedrals I’m after. We’ll be sure to spend a few days in Paris, too. Fanny made me swear to do three things while I was in France: get her the score of the last Debussy songs, go to the Grand-Guignol in Paris, and call on the Count Olenski at his new house near the Place des Invalides.” 

The name was like a bolt of fiery Armagnac, a bracing whiff of the pungent, restorative vapors; as if he’d been dreaming for years, and had suddenly been jolted into full wakefulness by a shot straight out of a clear blue sky. 

“Elio Manson, the Count Olenski?”

“Yes? Fanny calls him Uncle Elio. He was awfully good to Fanny after Mr. Beaumont packed her off to school in the Assomption. Fanny hadn't any friends in Paris, and the Count was very kind to her and took her out to the opera and the art galleries. Fanny was very excited about our trip, I think she might have sent him a telegram already to say we would be coming. I say, you don’t mind, do you? Fanny said Olenski was a great friend of the first Mrs. Beaumont's. And he's some sort of cousin, by marriage anyway, isn’t he?"

“That he is,” Oliver said, numbly — as if it were the most natural thing in the world, for the man who had so suddenly re-entered his thoughts this afternoon to be named now in this conversation with young Ollie, a name which his son had never mentioned before.

Nor had he, Oliver Newland, ever spoken the name to Ollie before, although, as had been noted, it had been a name never far from his mind; together with a life that had been impossible in old New York, in the days when the trenchant divisions between right and wrong, honest and dishonest, respectable and the reverse, had left so little scope for the imagination, or for liberty.

Ollie said, “Wonderful. Then can I count on your office to ring up the Cunard bookings line first thing tomorrow? And they’d better book a return on a boat from Marseilles, too. — I know you’ll have a capital time, Dad, we both will."

Ohio rang off, and Oliver Newland rose and began to pace up and down the room. 

He looked out of the frost-lined window into the stolid, somber Manhattan evening, and could almost envision the stately gaiety of the Parisian streets five thousand miles and five days’ sailing away. Its nights were lit up by the incandescent gas mantles and open arc lamps on display at last year’s Exposition Universelle, and by the presence of one man, no longer young, but in whose eyes Oliver’s much younger self had once imagined the sun rising, and a future filled with boundless possibilities, in which the days rolled out before them like a bright and endless summer. 

And Oliver felt his heart beating, for the first time in twenty-four years, with the confusion and eagerness and fervor of his long-forgotten youth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the early 20th century, [the liner Mauretania](https://transportgeography.org/?page_id=2135) with a capacity of 2,300 passengers, was able to cross the Atlantic in 4.5 days, a record held for 30 years when the liner Queen Mary reduced the crossing time by half a day (4 days). Relying on quadruple screws using turbine steam engines, these liners reached their operational capacity of around 1,500 to 2,000 passengers, and Atlantic crossing times stabilized around 5 days.  
> [Gilded Age Christmas traditions!](http://gildedagehistorychannel.com/gilded-age-videos/christmas-traditions-during-the-gilded-age/)  
> [Ganymede at Versailles.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganymede_\(mythology\)#/media/File:Le_chateau_de_versailles_le_jardin_114.jpg)  
> [The Firestone Mansion.](https://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/2019/03/akron-mansion-built-by-harvey-s-firestone-jr-hits-the-market-at-865-million.html)  
> [A history of Parisian street lighting](https://www.nature.com/articles/132888c0).


	2. Chapter 2

_New York, January 187__

On a January evening in the late seventies, the celebrated soprano, Adelina Patti, was singing the part of Elisabetta di Valois in Verdi’s _Don Carlo_ at the Academy of Music in New York. 

When Oliver Newland entered the club box, the opera had progressed to mid-way through the Fontainebleu scene, where the heroine had first encountered the impetuous prince of Spain —whom she mistakenly believed she was engaged to marry, and with whom she was recklessly falling in love. 

There was no reason why the young man should not have arrived earlier, save in that it was "not the done thing" in Oliver Newland’s New York to arrive early at the opera; and what was or was not "the done thing" played as important a part in his society as the religious auguries of his forefathers hundreds of years ago, when they had first set sail for this new world.

Oliver had another reason for his delay. He had lingered over his dinner with his mother, and afterwards his post-prandial cigar, because he was a romantic at heart, and, as with many such romantics, anticipated pleasures were often even more delightful than realized ones. On this occasion the pleasure his romantic spirit looked forward to was so rare and refined in quality that — had he timed his arrival in consultation with the prima donna's stage-manager — he could not have entered the Academy at a more significant moment than just as she was singing, exultantly, in the arms of her beloved: _"He loves me! Supreme joy fills my heart! "_ and sprinkling the ornate stage with notes as clear as cut crystal.

Oliver Newland took in a sip of this pitch-perfect aria, and pronounced it the height of Art itself.

Leaning against the wall at the back of the club box, Oliver turned his eyes from the stage to the box of old Mrs. Manson Mingott on the opposite side of the house. Mrs. Manson Mingott was fond of saying she had gotten too old and too deaf to enjoy the Opera; on fashionable nights the front of the box was filled by her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Lovell Mingott, and her daughter, Mrs. Welland. Tonight, behind these brocaded matrons sat a girl in white, with eyes ecstatically fixed on the lovers who had taken to the stage. 

As Madame Patti's _"He loves me!"_ rang out above the enraptured house, the girl flushed, seemingly from her hairline of her dark braids to the slope of her breast above its modest tulle tucker. Her white-gloved fingertips touched the immense bouquet of lilies-of-the-valley on her knee, and Oliver drew a breath of satisfied, possessive vanity.

"Why, she has no idea," he thought, with a swelling of proprietorial pride. “We'll read Petrarch together ... by the Italian lakes ..." 

For it had been only last month that Michele Welland had let him guess that she "cared", and already Oliver’s romantic imagination had leaped from the engagement ring to their matrimonial bliss in a scene entirely constructed from various European artistic and literary classics: the romantic verses of Dante to Beatrice, perhaps, and Schiavone’s _The Marriage of Cupid and Psyche_ , or Titan’s refined, erotic _Venus of Urbino_ , which had astonished Oliver two years ago during that young man’s visit to Florence.

Oliver Newland believed himself to be a modern and enlightened member of his class; more ready to embrace new ideas and notions of love and marriage than his predecessors in the settled kingdom of New York gentility. Certainly, if asked, he would have protested that he did not in the least wish the future Mrs. Newland to be a simpleton who had no notions of beauty other than his own, whose life was premised upon satisfying every desire of her husband. Indeed, he would profess the wish that she develop a readiness of wit that enabled her to hold her own with the denizens in their younger married set, and to have her own life of the mind as well as body that was separate from his. 

Yes, in matters intellectual and artistic and, above all, romantic, Oliver felt himself distinctly the superior of these carefully-brushed, button-hole-flowered gentlemen who festooned the club box, this bastion of old New York society. 

"Well—upon my soul!" exclaimed the foremost of that number, a gentleman known as Lawrence Leonard, turning his opera-glass abruptly away from the stage. Leonard was the foremost authority on "form" in New York: tracing his lineage back to the days of the Mayflower, he was married to the dull, dependable Lillian, whose idea of good form was whatever her husband decreed it was. “My God! Would you look at that?”

Oliver, following Leonard's glance, saw that this exclamation had been occasioned by the entry of a new figure into old Mrs. Mingott's family box. It was that of a slender young man, somewhat taller than Michele Welland, with brown hair growing in close curls about his temples seemingly untamed by the careful silver-backed brushes of New York gentility. 

With it, the gentleman wore not the approved formal evening dress of a dark tailcoat and trousers, white waistcoat, and shirt with the new winged collar, but an embroidered vest and old-fashioned satin knee-breeches and pristine white stockings that had not been seen in New York in a good two decades or so prior. This gentleman’s tailcoat had wide lapels and deep cuffs with a contrasting velvet collar. To ward off the January cold, he had on a full-length overcoat in what appeared to be a luxurious Old World fur, which he now shrugged from his lithe shoulders, and pulled off gloves he ought to have left at the cloak-room, all with a careless grace.

The wearer of this unusual dress, who seemed quite unconscious of the attention it was attracting, stood for a moment in full view of affronted society, discussing with Mrs. Welland the propriety of taking the latter's place in the front right-hand corner of the box. Then he yielded with a slight smile, and seated himself in line with Mrs. Lovell Mingott, who was installed in the opposite corner.

Leonard had passed his opera-glass to Mr. Edgar Emerson, his corresponding number on “family”. In addition to the forest of family trees of all New York as descended from the Mayflower, Mr. Emerson carried within his impeccably-dressed breast a register of most of the scandals that had churned beneath the unruffled surface of New York society within the last fifty years, including who Julius Beaumont, the banker, really was, and what had become of handsome Jonathan Adler, old Mrs. Manson Mingott's father, who had disappeared mysteriously with a large sum of trust money less than a year after his marriage and was never heard of again. 

As the whole of the club now turned, waiting to hear what the old man had to say, Mr. Emerson gave his white moustache a thoughtful twist and announced: "I didn't think the Manson Mingotts would have tried it on."

Oliver Newland experienced a moment of annoyance — that the box which was thus attracting his peers’ undivided attention should be that in which his intended was seated. For a moment he could not identify the gentleman in the unusual attire. Then light suddenly dawned.

The young man was Michele Welland's second cousin, the cousin always referred to in the family as "that Elio Olenski." 

Oliver knew that this gentleman had suddenly arrived from Europe a day or week or two previously; he had even heard from Miss Welland (not disapprovingly) that Elio had been staying with old Mrs. Mingott while in New York. Oliver approved of family solidarity, but welcoming Elio Manson, now titled Count Olenski, was quite a different thing from producing the man in public, at the Opera of all places, and in mixed company.

The cause of the commotion sat demurely in his corner of the box, his eyes fixed intently on the stage, his body undeniably graceful in this undoubtedly European costume. Sitting alongside and a little in front of Michele, the Manson Mingott family resemblance had never been more apparent.

"Do tell," OIiver heard one of the younger men begin behind him, "what’s the real story there?"

"Well—he’s finally left her; nobody attempts to deny that."

"Her family was awful, wasn’t it?" continued the young enquirer, who seemed prepared for the moment to assume the mantle of the Manson cousin's champion.

"The very worst; I knew the uncle at Nice," said Lawrence Leonard with authority. "A pale-skinned, sneering fellow — taller than I am, rather handsomely-dressed, but very large nostrils, eyes with far too many lashes. A castle and lands in Poland, and a title for the boy, which was why old Mrs Manson Mingott married him off to the young Countess in the first place. But I'll tell you the sort of family it was: word was, when Uncle Ostrorógsky wasn’t traveling the globe, frittering the family estates away on French wine and Dresden china, he was busy collecting women, and men, too. Paying any price, you understand, with the young Countess doing nothing to stop him."

There was rapt attention, and the champion said: "Well, then——?"

"Well, then; young Elio did his manly duty and fathered an heir on the girl. But after her family got through all of the Manson Mingotts’ dowry, the boy decided to bolt for it.” Leonard lowered his own lashes conspiratorially. “Ran off with one of the uncle’s male secretaries, they say."

"Oh, I say!" The champion's eyes widened. 

Oliver felt his own widen as well, though similar notions were not unheard of within his circle, nor of a man collecting other men as well as women, even in such a deeply conventional society as old New York.

"Yes, rather! It didn't last long, though: he turned up afterwards living alone in Venice, playing the piano at their conservatory like some common music-teacher. I believe Granny sent Lovell Mingott out to fetch him. Seems the boy was penniless, and desperately unhappy. That's all very well — but this parading around at the Opera's another thing."

"Oh, that's part of the campaign: Granny's orders, no doubt," Edgar Emerson said archly. "When the old lady does a thing, she does it thoroughly, and scandal be damned. The family’s going to stick together."

The act was ending, and there was a general stir in the box. Suddenly Oliver Newland felt compelled to decisive action. He was seized with a desire to show up his provincial, small-minded comrades who might be scandalized by romantic inclinations unlike that of their own; also, to proclaim his own entirely conventional romantic intentions towards Michele Welland, and to ally himself with her and her family’s courageous stand behind this disgraced, unhappy cousin. This generous impulse abruptly overruled all scruples he might ordinarily have harbored, and sent him hurrying through the red-paneled corridors to the farther side of the house.

As he entered the box his eyes met Miss Welland's, and he saw that she had instantly understood this motive, though family dignity dictated that they could not express it openly.

"You know my nephew, the Count Olenski?" Mrs. Welland enquired, as she shook hands with her future son-in-law. 

Oliver extended his hand. The Count hesitated, as if his first instinct was to kiss it in some fashion of European nobility, before he met Oliver’s firm New World handshake with a surprisingly strong clasp of his own. 

After greeting the others, Oliver sat down beside his betrothed, and said in a low tone: "I hope you've told your cousin that we're engaged? I want everyone to know — I want you to let me discuss the date with your father and mother."

Miss Welland looked at him fondly. "You know Mamma has her heart set on a long engagement," she said. He made no answer but that which his eyes returned, and she added, still more confidently smiling: "Why don’t you tell my cousin yourself: I give you leave. He says you boys all used to play together when you were children."

She pushed back her chair, making way for him, and a little ostentatiously, with the desire that the whole house should see what he was doing, Oliver seated himself at the Count Olenski's side.

“Yes, we did play together, didn't we?" that young man asked, turning his grave dark eyes to Oliver’s. "You were much older, of course, and had very little time for me, but it was you who found me in the armoire filled with dressing-up-clothes in Granny Mingott’s attic, after your cousin Vandie Newland shut me in and then left me there for hours." 

His amused glance swept across the opera-boxes. "This brings it all back to me — I see everybody here in knickerbockers and short pants," he said, a slightly foreign inflection to his low voice, a knowing smile curving his lips.

Despite his earlier vow to himself to not stint from welcoming differing views and inclinations, Oliver was taken aback by such a display of misplaced flippancy, reflecting so unseemly a picture of the court of law before which, at that very moment, the Count’s particular case was being heard. Oliver said, stiffly, "You have been away a very long time."

"Oh, centuries," the Count replied, easily. Then he broke off as the music started up again, with the entrance on the stage of the Prince’s bosom companion, Rodrigo of Posa. Everyone usually talked during the beginning of the second act, and behind him Oliver could hear Michele speaking to her mother about the afternoon’s trip to the stores, but Elio had fallen abruptly silent. His eyes slid half-closed, eyelashes making little fans upon his cheekbones; his nostrils flared, as if inhaling the baritone’s voice like a fragrance; his lips parted, as if he could taste the aria on his tongue.

Once again, Oliver was taken aback, this time at the other’s sudden transportation before the music. He himself had partaken of the treasures of the Uffizi, had visited La Scala and experienced, together with the pre-eminent aficionados of the day, none other than the great Giulia Grisi in her prime. But none of those experienced fellow connoisseurs had ever been as affected as this young man was now — who had grown up in the same district in lower Fifth Avenue as Oliver had, before he had moved halfway around the world to marry into a family and a life Oliver had only ever read about in books. The sound of the swelling orchestra, the bright, round cadences of the singers’ bel canto technique, Verdi’s incomparable score, all took over, and everything else in Count Olenski’s world seemed to fall away.

On stage, the Prince and his loyal knight joined hands and sang _”We swear together to live and to die together/Let us be joined together in earth, in heaven”_. Watching the young Count’s heavy-lidded, enraptured face, Oliver could only wonder whether if Lawrence Leonard could see what he, Oliver, saw in this moment, that supercilious commentator might come to a quite different view of the attractiveness of a man’s eyelashes. 

As the last ringing notes of the duet died away, Olenski came back to himself. It was as if he had been somewhere else entirely.

“Indeed,” he murmured, "I’ve been away so long that I might be dead, and this place is heaven;" which struck Oliver Newland as being something no New Yorker had ever quite considered before.

*

The next day, after the Opera, the Newland clan made the pilgrimage of so many engaged swains in New York society: to the venerable 1830s family residence of Mrs Manson Mingott at University Place, to seek that indefatigable matriarch’s approval for an intended alliance with the clan by way of marriage.

Mrs. Manson Mingott claimed that old age had made it difficult for her to go up and down stairs, and with characteristic independence she had established herself, in flagrant violation of all the New York proprieties, on the ground floor of her grand manor house. Visitors to her sitting-room would catch, through a door that was always open and a looped-back damask portiere, the unexpected vista of a bedroom with a huge low bed and a toilet-table with frivolous lace flounces, which recalled scenes in immoral French fiction. 

Consistent with the theme of the French lack of morals, the Count Olenski was not present in his grandmother's drawing-room during the visit of the betrothed couple. Mrs. Mingott said he had gone out, which caused Oliver’s mother to heave an audible sigh of relief. In the unfortunate cousin’s absence, the visit went off successfully, as was to have been expected. Old Mrs. Mingott was delighted with the engagement, which, being long foreseen by watchful relatives, had been carefully passed upon in family council and could brook no objections whatsoever.

“Very handsome,” Mrs. Mingott remarked, inspecting Michele’s engagement ring, a sapphire held in invisible claws. “Of course, in my time a cameo set in pearls was thought sufficient. And when's the wedding to be?" 

"Oh—" Mrs. Welland murmured, while Oliver, smiling at his betrothed’s happy blushes, replied: "As soon as ever, Mrs. Mingott, if only you'll back me up "

"We must give them time to get to know each other a little better, mamma," Mrs. Welland interposed, with the proper affectation of reluctance; to which the ancestress remarked: "Know each other? Nonsense! Everybody in New York has always known everybody. Let the young man have his way, my dear; don't wait till the bubble's off the wine!"

The visit was breaking up in this atmosphere of mild pleasantry when the door opened to admit the Count Olenski, wreathed in furs, followed by the unexpected figure of the notorious banker, Julius Beaumont. 

“Beaumont! What an unexpected pleasure,” Mrs. Mingott exclaimed, as Mrs. Newland and the others looked askance at the banker and murmured, nervous at even this proximity to any whiff of scandal, “We must be taking our leave.”

“Madam,” Beaumont said in his easy arrogant way. "I'm generally too tied down to pay you a visit; but I met the Count Elio in Madison Square, and he was good enough to let me accompany him home."

"Ah—I hope the house will be gayer, now that Elio's here!" cried Mrs. Mingott with a glorious effrontery; she urged Beaumont to pull a chair up while her relatives and relatives-to-be made their apologies and allowed Olenski to escort them into the hallway.

There, while the footmen were assisting Mrs. Welland and Michele with their furs, Oliver saw the Count looking at him with a faint question in his eye. He had not seen Olenski since that moment of connection at the Opera; now, here he, Oliver, was, in the guise of a prospective relative who had not yet had the courtesy of introducing himself as such.

"Of course you know already—about Michele and me," he said, awkwardly. "She scolded me for not giving you the news last night at the Opera: I had her orders to tell you that we were engaged — but I couldn't, in that crowd."

The smile passed from Count Olenski’s eyes to his lips: he looked younger, more like the bold young Elio Manson of Oliver’s boyhood, wiry and unafraid, eager to prove himself as capable as the bigger boys and occasionally getting into trouble because of it, as with that incident with Vandie and the armoire. "Of course I know; yes. And I'm so glad. But one doesn't speak about such things in a crowd." 

He paused and held out his hand for a decisive American farewell handshake.

"Good-bye, cousin; come and see me some day," he said, still looking at Oliver, who found himself muttering, somewhat taken aback, “Of course, of course,” even though he wasn’t entirely certain that he would.

*

The next evening Mr. Edgar Emerson came to the house. Mrs. Newland was a shy woman, but she liked to be well-informed as to the doings in society, and her well-informed old friend Mr. Emerson was all too willing to indulge her. Therefore, whenever anything happened that Mrs. Newland wanted to know about, she asked Mr. Emerson to dine; on the uniformly mediocre fare only partially compensated for by the excellent family Madeira.

That evening, Mrs. Newland wished to "draw" Mr. Emerson that evening on the topic of the Count Olenski, whom she had encountered together with Mr. Beaumont in the only blight on the otherwise successful betrothal visit to Mrs. Manson Mingott’s. Mr. Emerson had helped himself to a slice of the tepid filet which the Newlands’ butler had handed him with a look as sceptical as his own, and Oliver wondered if he would sate the rest of his appetite on the young Count Olenski instead.

At length, Mr. Emerson set aside his meal, and glanced up at the solemn ancestral portraits on the Newland dining room walls.

"Ah, how your grandfather loved a good dinner, my dear Oliver!" he said, his eyes on the portrait of a plump, blond, full-chested man in a stock and a navy-blue coat, with a view of a white-columned country manor behind him. "I wonder what he would have said to all these foreign marriages these days, eh?"

Mrs. Newland leaned forward and enquired, innocently, "So pertinent of you to say so. Have you seen the Count Olenski since his return to New York?” 

Mr. Emerson shook his head. “Only at a distance. He was at the Opera, but not at the Beaumonts’ ball afterwards."

"Ah—" Mrs. Newland murmured, in an approving tone. "It was, at any rate, in better taste not to go to the ball.”

A spirit of perversity moved her son to rejoin: "I don't think it was a question of taste with the Count. He probably has little interest in balls, whereas he clearly has a great interest in the opera."

Mrs. Newland glanced at her son, frowning a little. “That Elio," she remarked; adding compassionately: "We must always bear in mind what an eccentric bringing-up Annella Manson gave him. What can you expect of a boy allowed to spend a year in Paris with a troupe of musicians?"

"Why not?" Oliver asked, suddenly argumentative. "Why shouldn't a child be able to pursue interests that take his or her fancy? And why shouldn’t Elio Manson be able to attend the Beaumonts’ ball? He might have had the bad luck to make a wretched marriage; but I don't see that that's a reason for hiding himself away as if he were the culprit."

"That, I suppose," said Mr. Emerson, speculatively, "is the line the Mingotts mean to take."

The young man reddened. "I didn't have to wait for their cue, sir. Miss Welland’s cousin has had an unhappy life: that doesn't make him a criminal or an outcast."

"There’s ample evidence of unhappiness,” Mr Emerson agreed. “I’ve heard the boy was practically a prisoner in that castle, with all kinds of dreadful goings-on — mostly brought about by the uncle who stood as guardian for the estates after the old Count and Countess died.” He shrugged. “Mrs Manson Mingott wouldn’t have stood for it if she’d realized what was really going on, of course, but who was to know? A title’s a title, and the young Countess seemed harmless enough. Maybe the young man even felt sorry for her.”

This was something Oliver remembered of the old Elio Manson: the boy’s kind-hearted impulses to rush headlong to the rescue without heeding his own safety. There were vague memories of Elio giving all of his pocket money to some needy cause or other, as well as an incident where he had climbed a tree in his grandmother’s garden to rescue a stray kitten and become trapped himself. 

Was this what had occurred here, too? Young Elio, himself recently orphaned, meeting a young heiress who had lost her own parents; wanting to rescue her from a controlling, abusive uncle — only to be ensnared himself? Oliver Newland felt his own heart swell with pity for the well-meaning young man. 

“Still, it seems the boy wasn’t entirely blameless.” Mr. Emerson glanced at Mrs. Newland as he said it, and Oliver decided to take him up on the topic.

“Oh, yes, the secretary. If you’re right, and Olenski was practically kept a prisoner in a foreign country, then what’s the harm in the secretary helping him to get away? Any of us might have done the same — to help a young man flee from somewhere he’d been mistreated, where he knew no one, and come back home. Why should anyone blame the one who helped, as much as the one who got away?"

Mr. Emerson glanced over his shoulder to signal to the butler that, yes, he would like a second helping of filet after all; having been duly fortified, he remarked: "At any rate, I'm told Olenski's looking for a house. He means to make his home here." He paused. "Maybe he even means to get a divorce.”

"I hope he will!" Oliver exclaimed.

The word had fallen like a bombshell in the pure and tranquil atmosphere of the dining-room; they rather took Oliver by surprise as well. Mrs. Newland raised her eye-brows in the particular curve that signified a lack of good taste involved in discussing intimate matters in public, and Oliver hastily branched off into other more tasteful topics of conversation.

After dinner, Mrs. Newland left the gentlemen to their devices below stairs; Oliver settled Mr. Emerson in an armchair near the fire in the Gothic library. Mr. Emerson lit the cigar proffered to him by his host, and returned to their earlier discussions: "You say the secretary merely helped him to get away, my dear fellow? Well, he was still ‘helping’ the Count for a good while after, then; for I’m told somebody met 'em living in Venice together. Looking as if they were on more than just friendly terms with each other, if you get my drift."

Oliver reddened. "Living together? Well, why not?” he snapped. “Who wouldn’t have had enough of being married into a terrible family, abused, and treated like a stud horse? A young man should be free to make his life over with whoever he thinks fit!"

Even as Oliver spoke those words, he realized how hollow they must ring. He might pride himself on being a man of the world, equally familiar with the romance of the Roman Emperor Hadrian and his own secretary and lover, Antinous, as he was with that of Abelard and Heloise; with Zeus carrying off both comely Ganymede as well as shy Europa in order to slake his nefarious godly lusts. But these particular freedoms no longer flourished in this modern age of the Western world, where lying with a man as with a woman was not only prohibited in America’s churches but was also basis for a morals charge in various states, including the state of New York. 

Mr. Edgar Emerson smiled his thin smile, as if recognizing that Oliver’s show of bold romantic permissiveness was empty bravado. “Indeed, indeed,” he said. “We all know what Europe gets up to behind closed doors, don’t we? And Elio’s certainly still young enough to provoke chivalry in all kinds of places.”

Oliver felt himself flushing even more deeply, as if himself exposed by Mr. Emerson’s remark. Which could hardly be the case: his championing of his intended’s cousin was merely that — an expression of family solidarity, a residual feeling for a childhood friend, and sympathy for a fellow human being in emotional distress. New York society could hardly fault him for upholding the gallant standards which it had always been proud to espouse. 

Yet later that evening, after Mr. Emerson had taken himself away, and Oliver Newland mounted thoughtfully to his own study, he could not help feeling that he had only just begun to measure the risks of the association with that young man whose cause he had just so impulsively taken up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thanks, as always to raspberryhunter: inveterate _Don Carlos_ fan and beta extraordinare ♥
> 
> The opera staged in the beginning of Wharton’s original _The Age of Innocence_ was [Gonoud’s Faust](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust_\(opera\)). In this chapter, I’ve instead decided to go with Verdi’s [Don Carlo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Carlos/), an opera about freedom, and a mistaken marriage, and forbidden love (with several amazing m/m duets), which did in fact make its way to the New York Academy of Music [in 1877](https://www.metopera.org/discover/archives/notes-from-the-archives/from-the-archives-don-carlo-at-the-met/).
> 
> The Polish hereditary title and line of Count Olenski was an invention of Wharton’s. Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of [hereditary Polish Counts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Polish_noble_families_with_the_title_of_Count). I’ve also taken some liberties with the mechanics of Polish succession of the hereditary title of Count, though this source suggests that matrilineal assumption and transmission of noble status in general in fact occurred in Austria, Bohemia, and certain principalities in the Holy Roman Empire. [This source](https://books.google.com.sg/books?id=TIG7AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA79&lpg=PA79&dq=polish+nobility+matrilineal&source=bl&ots=mVu2qOhZkG&sig=ACfU3U393jnSOFdJZRxDiAZPvyVPsLPSgQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjp7oWVp4TuAhUzheYKHeowB-cQ6AEwGnoECBEQAg#v=onepage&q=polish%20nobility%20matrilineal&f=false) also suggests that, in Poland, despite general patrilineal succession of titles and coats of arms, a commoner might be ennobled by marriage to a female heir in the absence of a male heir to the title.
> 
> On the history of US sodomy laws, I’ve referred to [Dishonorable Passions: Sodomy Laws in America, [1861-2003] William N. Eskridge Jr., 2008](https://books.google.com.sg/books/about/Dishonorable_Passions.html?id=2kvrxp4TUYsC&redir_esc=y).
> 
> Various resources for men’s Western evening clothes in the 1800s: [here](https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/1876-2/) and [here](https://www.mimimatthews.com/2016/10/03/a-century-of-sartorial-style-a-visual-guide-to-19th-century-menswear/); Schiavone’s Marriage of Cupid and Psyche, currently (?) [at the Met](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437638).


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to raspberryhunter for the patient beta! It looks like I might be updating on a fortnightly cycle, and that I might need to keep adding chapters as the story plays out.
> 
> Please note content warnings in this chapter for sexual activity and mention of character death offscreen (sorry, Sammi).

_February, 187__

Over the course of the next few weeks or so, New York concluded that its returning émigré, the Count Olenski, formerly Elio Manson Mingott, had become rather a shadow of his former self.

Elio had appeared on the scene first as a brilliant little boy of eight or nine, of whom people said that he "ought to have been painted by Gainsborough." His parents had been continental wanderers, too fond of foreign cultures and different languages to stay in any one place; after a roaming babyhood, Elio had been returned to New York to "settle down." 

Everyone had been predisposed to be kind to little Elio, whose rosy cheeks and tight curls gave him an air of mischief, though he was permitted to dress in crimson merino and amber beads as if he were a gipsy foundling. He had been a fearless and familiar little thing, who asked disconcerting questions, made precocious comments in a low, considered voice, and possessed outlandish arts, such as being able to converse fluently in not one but five different languages, to recite Sappho in archaic Greek, and to sing Neapolitan love-songs while accompanying himself upon a guitar. Under the direction of his eccentric mother, who had been a Rushworth before she had married Professor Samuel Manson, the black sheep of the Manson Mingott family, the little boy had received an expensive but incoherent education, which included "drawing from the model," a thing never dreamed of before, and playing the piano in quintets with professional musicians.

Of course, though these charming eccentricities endeared the boy to many — including to the matriarch of the family, the indefatigable Catherine Manson Mingott, née Adler, then herself recently deprived of a husband and seized of spry late middle age, who had proclaimed to all who would hear her that Elio was her favourite grandchild, and the one who took after her in both beauty and boldness — no good could come of this. When, a few years later, the professor disappeared from the scene (in an unfortunate Continental mishap which was rumored to have involved a scandalously young woman and the steam-engine to Paris), his widow pulled up stakes and departed with Elio, who had grown into a tall, bony young man with conspicuous eyes. 

For some time nothing was heard of them; then, after several years, news came of Annella’s own demise in Paris. Catherine herself went to see about the poor orphan with Samuel’s brother in tow, and they remained in Europe for the remainder of the season, much to the discomfiture of the Manson Mingott clan. After the passage of another year, New York was notified of Elio's marriage to an immensely rich Polish noblewoman, whom he had met at a ball at the Tuileries, whose family was said to have princely establishments in Paris, Nice and Florence, a yacht at Cowes, and an ancestral seat with many square miles of shooting in Bielsk. 

Catherine returned to New York in triumph, and Elio disappeared into a wilderness for the better part of a half-decade. He was remembered amongst his kinsfolk only sporadically, such as when Elio’s former music-teacher fell upon hard times, and people wondered whether the wealthy former pupil, the new Count Olenski, would be minded to do something for the poor man. Then came the news that Elio's own marriage had ended in disaster, and that he was himself returning home to the bosom of his family.

Oliver recalled these matters as he watched Olenski make his way through a New York that had grown wary of this self-possessed young man with his foreign name and decidedly foreign ways. Catherine Manson Mingott was as much a champion of her favorite grandchild as ever, though, and the family’s position had been enhanced by its impending alliance with the Newlands, in the person of Oliver himself. 

In particular, Oliver’s aunt, the venerable Ursula van der Luyden, who had herself also been proficient on the piano in her youth, had become rather partial to the young Count; when her cousin, the Duke of St. Austrey, came to town to enter his new sloop in the next summer's International Cup Race, the van der Luydens arranged a small party for the Duke at their large, solemn house in Madison Avenue, and were only too happy to include the Count in their company. 

The dinner itself was a rather formidable affair. Dining with the van der Luydens was always a weighty business, even more so dining there with an English Duke who was their cousin. To emphasise the importance of the occasion, the du Lac silver and the Trevenna George II plates had been taken out; all the ladies had on their handsomest jewels, and the gentlemen were in full evening dress with starched white shirts and shoes so polished you could see your face in them.

The Count Olenski was the youngest man at the dinner; yet the other smooth plump elderly faces between their stiff collars struck Oliver as curiously immature in comparison. In the candlelight, Elio’s faint smile was a cipher, his eyes, which might have seen depravities which no one at this table could have imagined, were almost frighteningly dark. 

The Duke of St. Austrey, who sat at his hostess's right, was naturally the chief figure of the evening; an inconspicuous figure whose ancient evening clothes were shabby and whose vast beard spreading over his shirt-front. When dinner was over, and the men could gather amongst themselves, he went straight up to the Count Olenski, and they sat down in a corner and plunged into animated talk, ignoring their host as well as that affable hypochondriac, Mr. Henry Chivers of Washington Square, who, in order to have the pleasure of meeting the van der Luydens’ Duke, had broken his self-imposed restriction against dining out in the coldest months of the year. 

The two chatted together for nearly twenty minutes; then the Count rose and, walking alone across the wide drawing-room in his European breeches and stockings, sat down at Oliver Newland's side on the other corner of the sofa, and looked at him with the kindest eyes.

"I wanted to talk to you about Michele," he said, gently.

Instead of answering right away, and too curious to pretend he hadn’t been watching them, Oliver asked: "You knew the Duke before?"

"Oh, yes—we used to see him in every summer in Nice, and every autumn at Bielsk. He's very fond of gambling as well as hunting; he used to come to the house a great deal to engage in both." Olenski said it in the simplest manner, as if he had remarked that the Duke was fond of stamp-collecting; and after a moment he added candidly: "Just between us, he’s possibly one of the dullest men I ever met."

This sent a not-unpleasant shock through Oliver. It was undeniably exciting to meet a gentleman who found the van der Luydens' Duke dull, and dared to utter the opinion. He longed to question Olenski further, to hear more about the life of which these careless words had given such an illuminating glimpse; but he remembered that these might be distressing memories — of Bielsk, of the failed marriage, of the evil uncle — and before he could think of anything to say, Elio had strayed back to his original subject.

"Michele is such a darling; she is so kind and so intelligent. Everyone here has been very kind to me, and she the most of all. Are you very much in love with her?"

Oliver found himself reddening; he covered it with an awkward laugh. "As much as any man can be."

A slight frown marred the perfect line of Olenski’s brow, though his tone remained teasing when he said, "Do you think, then, there is a limit?"

"To being in love? If there is, I haven't found it!"

Olenski’s smile grew warmer at this. "I see—then, it's really and truly a romance?"

Laughing, too: "The most romantic of romances!"

"How delightful! And you found it all out for yourselves—nothing was arranged for you?"

Oliver stared at him, stung. "Have you forgotten," he asked, "that in our country we don't allow our marriages to be arranged for us?"

A dusky blush rose to the Count’s cheek, and Oliver instantly regretted his words: here was the distress that he had not a minute before been afraid to cause, and that he had just blundered into nevertheless.

"Yes," Elio said, after a while, "I'd forgotten. You must forgive me; I don't always remember that everything here is good that was—that was bad where I've come from." He swallowed, and looked down at his hands, which contained an unlit cigar pressed upon him by their host.

"Forgive me," Oliver said, miserably. Plunging ahead, he continued; "But, you know, you are among friends now."

Elio visibly took hold of himself. "Yes—I know. That's why I came home. I want to forget everything else, to become a complete American again, like the Mingotts and Wellands, and you and your delightful mother, and all the other good people here tonight.” He forced a smile, and then looked over Oliver’s head towards the door: “Ah, here at the ladies arriving, and you will want to hurry away to Michele." 

The drawing-rooms were beginning to fill up with after-dinner guests, and following Olenski's glance, Oliver saw Miss Welland entering with her mother. In her dress of white and silver, the tall girl looked like Artemis, a virginal goddess of the ancient world.

"Oh," said Oliver, "I have so many rivals; you see she's already surrounded—there's the Duke being introduced. I’m not going to be able to get a word in all night."

"Well, then, you might as well stay here with me a little longer," Olenski said, recovering something of his former teasing tone. “Tell me, cousin, what do you and Michele speak about, once you manage to run the gauntlet and secure an audience with the lady in the tower?”

Oliver considered this. There was the usual plethora of family matters, and now the pressing issue of setting their wedding date, but these seemed rather dull in the face of Olenski’s comments regarding the Duke. 

“We talk about books, and poetry,” he said at last. “We have finished the _Idylls of the King_ —which, I’m glad to report, she did not like so much — and are starting on _Ulysses_ , which I’m sorry to report, is also not finding favor.”

“Ah, Tennyson’s masterpiece. It’s true, the _Quarterly Review_ criticized its depiction of Ulysses’ selfish nature. But I found it a most moving account of grief and longing, particularly when seen in light of the death of the poet’s great friend, Arthur Hallam.”

This gave Oliver pause: indeed, Michele had misliked the poem for this very reason, though as usual she had eventually deferred to his views on this topic. “Quite so. Ulysses wasn’t selfishly abandoning his kingdom and family, but was yearning for his youth, and the friends of his youth, and for the freedom to explore new worlds once more.”

Olenski nodded soberly; his eyes looked nothing like his cousin’s. Conversationally, he said, as if commenting on the weather: “ _Come, my friends, 'tis not too late to seek a newer world/Push off, and sitting well in order smite the sounding furrows; for my purpose holds/To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths of all the western stars, until I die._ ”

Oliver had never heard Tennyson’s grand verse recited so simply and naturally; Elio’s melodic voice gave the words a cadence that stirred some deep longing and recklessness within his own breast. Impulsively, he leaped into the breach, completing the stanza: 

_“It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;_  
_It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,_  
_And see the great Achilles, whom we knew._ ”

Oliver could not help but be aware of the inadequacy of his rendition; still, Olenski was kind enough to nod in appreciation. “Just so,” he said, gravely. He lit his cigar, as if to commemorate the British poet laureate, and Oliver followed suit; his match was somewhat damp, and the Count had to reach out to help him steady the flame. 

Their fingers brushed against each other; the lightest touch, but it seemed as if a spark had jumped between them, from one to the other.

“You might talk to _me_ about books, too, some time,” Elio remarked, after a while. 

"Yes, let me do that," Oliver answered, hardly knowing what he was saying; but just then Mr. van der Luyden came up, followed by old Mr. Chivers. The Count greeted them with his grave smile, and Oliver, feeling his host's admonitory glance on him, rose and surrendered his seat.

Count Olenski held out his hand as if to bid Oliver goodbye.

"Tomorrow, then, after four—I shall expect you," he said, and then turned back to address Mr. Chivers.

"Tomorrow—" Oliver heard himself repeating, though there had been no actual arrangement.

As he moved away he saw Mrs. van der Luyden looking up at him from the eminence of dark velvet and the family emeralds. "It was good of you, dear Oliver, to devote yourself so unselfishly to the Count. You know, I've never seen Michele looking lovelier. The Duke thinks her quite the handsomest girl in the room."

*

Olenski had said "after four"; and at half after the hour Oliver Newland rang the bell of the peeling stucco house which the Count had hired, located far down West Twenty-third Street. It was a strange quarter to have settled in. Painters, artists and "people who wrote" were Olenski’s nearest neighbours; further down the dishevelled street Oliver recognised a dilapidated wooden house belonging to an acquaintance of his, a journalist called Winslow, who occasionally wrote for the _New-York Times_.

Oliver had spent an unsatisfactory day. He hoped to carry Michele off after lunch for a walk in the Park, but Mrs. Welland had firmly reminded him that the round of family visits to announce their engagement was not half over, and he had been bundled into the family landau and rolled from one tribal doorstep to another. When the afternoon's visiting was over, Oliver departed from his betrothed’s family with the distinct feeling that he had been shown off before the natives like a wild animal cunningly trapped. 

He had meant to tell Michele of his impending visit to her cousin’s, but somehow amid the whirlwind of visits to the Chiverses and Dallases, they had not spent a moment together during which it could be mentioned. He knew that Michele wanted him to be kind to her cousin, and this visit was well within that mandate; also, for some reason he could not immediately name, he had hoped to avoid any reference to his and Elio’s last conversation, comprising not only a reading of _Ulysses_ that differed from Michele’s own, but also his blunder regarding Olenski’s unhappy marriage. 

The Count’s door was opened by a foreign-looking maid. She welcomed him with a wide smile, answering his enquiries by a head-shake of incomprehension, and led him through the narrow hall into a low fire-lit drawing-room. The room was empty, the curtains drawn, and Oliver was left to wait, perched on a shabby brocade sofa beside the fireplace.

In the light of a nearby lamp, Oliver beheld the faded shadowy charm of a room unlike any room he had known. There were some small slender tables of dark wood, a delicate little Greek bronze on the chimney-piece, and a stretch of red damask nailed on the wallpaper behind a couple of Italian-looking pictures in old frames.

Oliver Newland was not unknowledgeable in Italian art; his boyhood had been saturated with Ruskin, and he had read all the latest books, including a wonderful new volume called "The Renaissance" by Walter Pater. But these pictures perplexed him, for they were like nothing that he was accustomed to look at when he travelled in Italy. The whole atmosphere of the room was so different from any he had ever breathed that he was seized almost by a sense of adventure, in which this drawing-room, hung with red damask and with pictures "of the Italian school", had been transformed into something intimate and foreign, suggestive of old romantic scenes and sentiments, a place entirely different from old New York. 

In one corner of the room stood a square piano, with the lid carelessly raised and a sheaf of sheet music propped on its ivory keys. There was the perfume from the Jacqueminot roses in the slender vase at his elbow, but also a vague pervading scent like some far-off bazaar, of coffee and ambergris and dried flowers. 

It was very far away from his image of the drawing-room in the house he and Michele would share after they were married. Mr. Welland had his eye on a newly-built house in East Thirty-ninth Street with perfect modern plumbing; in furnishing it, Oliver imagined Michele would not likely depart from the purple satin and yellow tuftings of the Welland drawing-room, with its gilt vitrines full of modern Saxe china. She would have been even more bewildered than he to see this place, in which her cousin had clearly wrought some transcontinental magic in order to bring Venice to the lower West Side.

Down the cobblestones of the quiet street came the ring of hooves, and then the opening of a carriage door. Crossing to the window and parting the curtains, Oliver looked out into the late afternoon, and the sight of Julius Beaumont’s compact English brougham. The banker descended from it, and gallantly handed out the light, pleasing figure of Count Olenski.

Beaumont stood, hat in hand, saying something which his companion seemed to negative; then they shook hands, and he jumped into his carriage while Olenski mounted the steps.

When the Count entered the room, his face broke into a bright, unaffected smile to see Oliver waiting on the sofa.

"Welcome to my little house," he said. "To me it's like heaven."

As he spoke, he shrugged off his furs and hung his hat on the hat-stand, and crossed to the window where Oliver had been standing a moment before. Then he threw open the curtains, and let in the last rays of the afternoon sun.

"You've arranged it delightfully," Oliver said, gesturing around the brightened room, very aware of how banal the comment must sound.

"Oh, it’s a poor little place, and my relatives mislike it.” Olenski flung himself onto the chaise longue by the fireplace. "Granny wanted me to stay with her. But I enjoy the blessedness of a place to call my own, where I can be alone, and free."

Awkwardly: “You like so much to be alone, then?”

Elio pursed his lips. “Yes, to the alternative. And I have kind friends to keep me from feeling lonely — like you, and Mr. Beaumont.” 

“Well—!” Oliver did not enjoy being compared with the banker; something other than wounded vanity shifted under his breast, and it took a long moment for him to recognize it as jealousy. He found himself saying, peevishly, “Beaumont has certainly been taking the task to heart, hasn’t he?”

One corner of Elio’s mouth crooked upwards. "Why—did I keep you waiting for long? Julius has been taking me to see a number of houses, since it seems I'm not to be allowed to stay in this one." 

He extracted a gold cigarette-case from inside his vest pocket, and offered Oliver a cigarette before taking one himself. In the chimney were long spills for lighting them. Olenski continued, taking a long, meditative draught: "I've never been in a city where there seems to be such a feeling against living in _des quartiers excentriques_. The street seems respectable; my neighbors are artists and musicians and writers, and I enjoy living in such a milieu."

"It's not fashionable," Oliver said, a little helplessly, recognizing as he said it that he was likely echoing the parochial views of not only the Mingotts but also Julius Beaumont. “Your relatives — and mine — the old establishment set, like the van de Luydens and their friends: they would disapprove of eccentric quarters, and eccentric neighbors.”

“And you, cousin? Do you share the sentiments of this ‘old establishment’?” Elio asked, arching an eyebrow mischievously; Oliver realized he was being baited, and worse, that he could not avoid the trap.

“Not in everything, of course. Old New York is very conventional, in many ways, and it’s not easy to keep abreast of modern ideas and views.”

Elio’s eyes were amused. “But you keep yourself abreast of the modern world, don’t you? And you enjoy art, and books; surely you can’t object to living among those who create them?”

“Yes, of course; I mean, of course not,” Oliver was forced to say. He valiantly regrouped: “But there’s also good in traditions, in old values. When your relatives disapprove of these lodgings, they only intend what is best for you.”

Elio shrugged. “They say _L'enfer est plein de bonnes volontés_ , or the road to Hell is paved with the best intentions. Mine was certainly paved with the very best,” he added, bitterly, and had to look abruptly away for a moment. His eyelashes quivered; the hand he pressed to his forehead shook with sudden emotion.

Oliver sprang to his feet before he even realized what he was doing, reaching instinctively for Olenski’s hand as if to comfort a child. With some effort, he abandoned the gesture in mid-flight. Men of their set were never physically familiar with one another, even when giving solace; yet Oliver could not say why he had, in the moment, been so irresistibly drawn to clasp those fluttering fingers; to lay his hand against the white curve of Elio’s cheek and wipe the sadness from those downcast eyes, with New York seeming so very far away. 

“Elio, I am so, so sorry —“

“Don’t be,” Olenski said, fiercely, and stubbed out his cigarette viciously in a small crystal bowl. “I’ve managed to escape Hell, like Dante did, and this poor little house is now like Heaven.”

Awkwardly, Oliver remained on his feet, very conscious of his proximity to the Count but fearing the further awkwardness of retreating. His heart ached for the young man, yet he had no words to express his sympathy, or, it seemed, to say anything other than a fatuous, “Not yet so poor, cousin, for here you have a piano, and some lovely paintings—!”

“I do,” Olenski said, almost eagerly, “a few things, which I was able to take with me, that bring me happiness—” and with those words, he leaped up from his armchair and flung himself onto the piano-seat. “What shall I play for you?”

“Why, anything, anything at all —” and Olenski launched into what sounded like the most complex and deliberately cheerful fugue he could think of, and entirely from memory. Oliver was not as well-schooled in musical arts as he was in the theatrical or pictoral ones, but he recognized one of Bach’s major fugues from the _Well-Tempered Clavier_. 

Olenski’s white fingers flashed over the keys, his expressive face taking on the aspect which Oliver recalled from that night at the Opera many weeks ago: heavy-lidded and rapt and completely absorbed in the music. Oliver stood rooted to his spot beside the window, almost afraid to move as the notes soared from the old square piano, bright and crystalline, filling the room as completely as the light from the new moon that rose outside the window, as if it had been summoned there by Olenski’s virtuoso performance, and all of them had been transported to another more beautiful world. 

Then, Olenski changed the pace, and a simpler, more innocent tune poured forth; youthful and almost cocksure in tempo. The fire crackled, and Elio’s dark eyes shone with exaggerated expression, and Oliver found himself laughing. He regained his powers of movement together with the power of speech, and crossed the room in two long strides to stand beside the piano, looking down at the pianist with new eyes.

“What are you playing now?”

“Still Bach,” Olenski said, with a twinkle, and not missing a beat, “but it’s young Bach, this time; something he wrote very early, and performed when he was nineteen, for his brother who was going away to war.” 

The jaunty jingle seemed off-key to Oliver’s amateur ear, and he told Elio so: “This does sound rather too cheerful for a farewell.”

“You’re right; it was my little joke. I was playing the version of Bach’s _Capriccio_ that would have been played by Liszt, a Bach devotee — but he was also a more expressive performer, whose abandon some critics considered unseemly.”

Oliver had thought the Liszt interpretation a clever and amusing interpretation, but nevertheless felt it his place, as well as consistent with the traditional position he had been espousing, to remark, “Will you please play for me the version which the composer intended, instead?”

Elio grinned, his color high, and Oliver saw a flash of the young man he would have been in Paris, at the height of his innocence and prowess: the toast of all the best parties with his looks and daring and talent, before it had all come to ruin. For an instant, Oliver thought the young Count would break into yet another divertissement, even wilder than the last, but Elio composed himself and set about playing the piece as the serious young Bach would have played it, with a purity and serenity of spirit that was immensely moving.

Their eyes met over the piano’s square frame as the last notes died away. Elio was opening his mouth to say something when the maid put her head into the room say something in Italian.

Count Olenski rose from the piano, uttering an exclamation of assent, and the Duke of St. Austrey took command of the room, ushering a tremendous be-wigged and red-plumed lady in overflowing furs in his tow.

"My dear Count, I've brought an old friend of mine to see you: Mrs. Stringers. She wasn't asked to the party last night, and she wants to know you."

Olenski advanced with a murmur of welcome. Oliver was surprised: he had never been introduced to Lemuel Stringer’s wife, but, like everyone in New York, he was familiar with the salient details of the shoe-polish tycoon’s marriage to this ageing music-hall actress. The Count seemed to have no idea what a liberty the Duke had taken in bringing this unusual companion to meet him — though, in fairness, the Duke seemed as unaware of it himself.

"Of course I want to know you, sweet boy," cried Mrs. Stringers in a booming voice that matched her bold feathers and her brazen wig. "I want to know everybody who's young and interesting and charming. The Duke tells me you like music! And, how charming — I see you're a pianist yourself? Well, do you want to hear Sarasate play tomorrow evening at my house? You know I've something going on every Sunday evening—it's the day when New York doesn't know what to do with itself, and so I say to it: 'Come and be amused’. You'll find a number of your friends."

Count Olenski’s face grew brilliant with pleasure. "How kind! What a treat to hear Sarasate!" He ushered Mrs. Stringers into a chair. "Of course I shall be too happy to come."

"Wonderful, my dear. And bring this other young gentleman with you." Mrs. Stringers extended a hand to Oliver, who could not avoid bending over it. "Are you an academic, perhaps? I can't put a name to you—but I'm sure I've met you—I've met everybody, here, or in Paris or London. You like music, too? Duke, you must be sure to bring him."

The Duke said "Rather" from the depths of his beard, and Oliver withdrew from Olenski’s house, telling himself he was not sorry for the denouement of his visit; only that it ought to have come sooner, thereby sparing him an excess of emotion. 

As he went out into the wintry night, New York again became vast and imminent, and Michele Welland the loveliest woman in it. Oliver was determined to put Michele’s unhappy cousin from his mind, together with this unprecedented evening, even though it took a surprising amount of effort on his part. 

*

Oliver managed to maintain his serene spirits throughout his dinner and his post-prandial cigar and sherry; they continued until after he put himself to bed, whereupon he discovered he was uncommonly, and vexingly, roused up. 

Oliver was a young man not often given to solitary pleasures of the flesh. Although he was well aware that modern thinking had moved away from Puritan notions of the act as, variously, a sin, an offence against morals, and a sign of debilitating mental illness — and he himself inclined more to the attitude of the Greeks, which had considered it a harmless expression of sexuality — he nonetheless felt that a gentleman of standing ought not overly physically indulge himself if he could help it. And, more often than not, Oliver Newland could most certainly help it: - as a young man of the world, he had had a lengthy season of wild oats, including, most recently, his tempestuous two-year-long affair with poor Mrs Rushworth Bullington. Still, he had not laid so much as a finger on virginal Michele Welland throughout their courtship, and had lately been forced to resort to baser reliefs. 

As Oliver folded back the covers and reached under his nightshirt, he wondered, a little despairingly, if this was to be his fate over the course of his lengthy engagement, which he had thus far not managed to prevail upon his in-laws to accelerate. 

Once there, and finding himself already tumescent — a condition which undoubtedly had been brought about by his current period of drought — Oliver began, cautiously, to stroke. 

As he did so, he tried, as always, to picture the sweet face of his bride-to-be. He had, of course, yet to set eyes on her unclothed young body, and ever since she had started to feature in his nocturnal activities he’d been beset by the vague sense that envisioning her naked would be somehow disrespectful as his future wife and mother of his children. Thus hampered, all too often Oliver would find his mind straying to images of Regina Rushworth Bullington in her lush nudity, to the laughing ladies and courtesans whom he had briefly known in the course of his European travels, and to the unchaperoned young girl whom he’d encountered last summer in Florence, dressed in fine lace, with a veil over her cropped hair, who had not given him her name, but who had gone to her knees before him in a stuccoed alley near the Piazza della Signoria, beside a crumbling statue of Apollo, before disappearing into the reckless Italian night.

This night in prosaic New York, Oliver resolved to fix his mind on Michele, and from the neck up. He licked his hand and applied himself to his task, envisioning her brave, straightforward smile, her candid hazel eyes. He pictured himself running his hands over her face, as he had done in stolen, precious occasions before, learning the shape of her uncomplicated brow, the remnants of freckles on her cheekbones from summers of riding and swimming and archery, her determined little chin. 

As his hand sped up — it would not be long now, not long at all — he kissed her nose, her upturned mouth, her downturned lashes — and then her lips parted, and her eyes opened, and for a moment they weren’t her eyes at all. There were the same lashes, the same green-flecked hazel gaze, but it was not Michele. The soft lips, kissing him back —

— _Elio_ , and Oliver spilled himself harshly into his palm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wharton was herself born at [No. 14 West 23rd Street](http://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2011/03/from-wharton-to-tacos-no-14-west-23rd.html), the increasingly commercialized street on which she situated Ellen Olenska’s house in the novel.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thanks, as always, to my lovely raspberryhunter, for her beta and enthusiasm for Walt Whitman <3

The next Sunday Oliver persuaded Michele to escape for a walk in the Park after luncheon. It was a perfect morning in New York, winter giving way to an early spring, with the trees along the main pathways already showing buds, and the morning sky was a clear, untroubled blue. It was the weather to call out Michele's healthy radiance, and she burned like a young maple in the first flush of spring. 

Oliver was proud of the glances turned on her, and the simple joy of possessorship cleared away his underlying perplexities. He told himself that he was just ill-used to going without; the fact that his thoughts had turned to Count Olenski, and kept returning to that young man, was merely a result of this period of famine and not any other untoward affections. Elio was Michele’s cousin, and there was a family resemblance; it was natural for Oliver to have thought of one in place of the other while in the throes of his extremity. Further, Oliver had admired Olenski’s talent and taste, and had pitied his sadness — it was only to be expected that he would continue to think about these matters long after he had left Olenski’s company.

All the same, while Oliver was willing to wait patiently for the long-coveted prize of Michele’s hand, if this extended state of deprivation was going to drive him to unknown depravity, there was all the more reason to plead for an acceleration of their marriage and its consummation. To this end, Oliver turned their present conversation about flowers and the wedding trousseau to the wedding date itself.

“Darling, can’t we possibly persuade your mother to give up this insistence on a long engagement?”

Michele: "If you call it long! Isabel Dallas and Reggie were engaged for two years: Diana and Thorley for nearly a year and a half. Why aren't we very well off as we are?"

It was the traditional maidenly interrogation, and Oliver felt ashamed of himself for finding it stultifying. He shook it off, and set about trying better persuasion: "We might be much better off! We might be able to be together sooner—we might travel."

Her face lit up. "That would be lovely," she owned: she would love to travel. But her family would simply not understand their wanting to do things so differently.

"As if the mere 'differently' isn’t reason enough?" Oliver asked impulsively.

Michele laughed, a little taken aback. “Mercy! Shall we elope, then, like people in novels?”

Oliver looked down at her bright face and admiring eyes, and was seized with the excitement of their discussion. “Why not? Why can’t we make a go of it, you and me, and strike out for ourselves?”

"What a wonderful thought, Oliver! But we can't behave like people in novels, though, can we?"

"Why not—why not?"

She looked a little bored by his persistence on a topic which they both should know was wholly impracticable. “Well—isn’t that kind of thing rather—vulgar?" she suggested, relieved to have hit on a word that would assuredly extinguish the whole subject.

"Are you so much afraid, then, of being vulgar?"

She was evidently staggered by this. "Of course I should hate it—and so would you," she rejoined, a trifle irritably. 

Oliver could think of nothing else to say, and feeling that she had indeed found the right way of closing the discussion, Michele went on, with determination: "Did I tell you that Elio admires my ring? He said there's nothing quite like it in all of the rue de la Paix."

*

Several weeks passed. As Oliver Newland, before dinner, sat smoking sullenly in his study, his mother knocked and then entered the room. She found a son out of spirits and slightly out of temper. 

That evening, Oliver had failed to stop at his club on the way up from the office where he exercised the profession of the law in the leisurely manner common to well-to-do New Yorkers of his class. The reason for this departure from his usual practice was because he had been seized by the haunting horror of doing the same thing every day at the same hour.

"Sameness—this blasted sameness!" he had thought to himself, looking in at the familiar tall-hatted figures lounging behind the plate-glass window of the club, and had fled home instead. 

He raised his head when his mother entered the room, and then quickly bent back over his book (Swinburne's "Chastelard"—just out) as she hovered Cassandra-like before him.

"Oliver, we need to speak."

"What is it, Mother?"

"It’s about your friend, the Count Olenski. Mr. Emerson said he was seen at Mrs. Lemuel Stringers's party some weeks ago: he went there with the Duke and Mr. Beaufort."

At the last clause of this announcement, a formless emotion swelled the young man's breast. To smother it he laughed. "Well, what of it? I knew Elio meant to go to the Stringerses’."

His mother stared at him. "You knew he meant to go—and you didn't try to warn him not to? To be seen at…at such a party?"

"Warn him?" Oliver laughed again. "I'm not engaged to be married to the Count Olenski!" The words had a fantastic sound in his own ears.

"You're marrying into his family, Oliver, you need to be serious. It seems there were unsuitable people there — there was a woman who got up on a table and sang the things they sing at places in Paris! There was smoking and champagne in mixed company!"

Oliver could just picture the scene, and it was far a more appealing one than the one at the club, in which he was used to spending six out of the seven evenings in his own week. A spirit of rebellion moved him to say, recklessly, “So, what of it? The Count Olenski went to the house of a woman you consider common, a party where there was good music and amusing people. That kind of thing happens in other places, and the world still goes on."

" _Consider_ common…? My dear, New York is not ‘other places’. People should respect our ways when they come among us. Count Olenski especially: he came back to get away from the kind of life people lead in Paris, and elsewhere."

Oliver was half-minded to retort that New York was indeed not like ‘other places’; that its traditions were too often a veneer for small-minded attitudes and a stultification of the freedoms it pretended to espouse. But he knew his mother wouldn’t take at all kindly to such a pronouncement, and, with an effort, he reached for her hand.

"Dearest mother, if it makes you happy, I’ll speak to the Count about being more respectful of the feelings of old New York.”

His mother’s brow cleared rapidly. “Oliver, would you? That would be ideal. Please prevail on young Elio to just be more circumspect, that’s all.” 

“I’ll try, but perhaps he’ll instead manage to convince me that Mrs Stringers’ parties are no more common than the ones thrown by cousin Ursula, and a good sight more amusing!"

*

And that was how Oliver Newland found himself at one of the very parties in question the following Sunday — crammed around a small table in Mrs Stringers’s cramped, badly-lit drawing-room, with a lady in feathers and red velvet on one side, and the Count Olenski on the other.

Count Olenski had not, as Oliver had first feared, taken offence to the suggestion that he ought to be more circumspect of old New York traditions, and reticent of his Sunday visits to the Stringerses’, at the unfashionably-situated house that shoe-polish had built. 

He did, however, inform Oliver that Mrs Stringers had that very evening secured an audience with none other than the controversial American poet Walter Whitman himself.

Oliver was astonished by this feat. Whitman, formerly a New Yorker, had been living for the last decade with his brother in New Jersey, mostly bedridden and in poor health; he had not given lectures or readings for many years. It seemed, however, that the great poet had however been persuaded from his sickbed to give the commencement address at Columbia University, and was stopping in Manhattan for the night before returning to Camden in the morning. 

“Come with me,” Elio suggested, a challenge in his sparkling eyes; “surely such a rare encounter would be worth the risk of unfashionable company—!”, and Oliver found he could not disagree. 

Literature and art were deeply respected in the Newland set, and Oliver’s family had often spoken wistfully of the days when agreeable and cultivated society had included such figures as Washington Irving, Fitz-Greene Halleck and the poet of "The Culprit Fay." However, those celebrated authors of that generation had been "gentlemen". Perhaps the writers who succeeded them had gentlemanly sentiments, but their origins, their appearance, the company they kept and their reluctance to be amalgamated into the social structure, made that gallant criterion inapplicable to them. Whitman himself — born to Long Island Quakers of difficult economic status, who had left formal schooling at the age of nine — would have never been considered a gentleman in old New York. 

Indeed, Whitman’s _Leaves of Grass_ , now in its fourth edition, had drawn most ungentlemanly controversy, engendering both extravagant praise as well as robust criticism. None other than Ralph Waldo Emerson had called it _the most extraordinary piece of wit & wisdom that America has yet contributed_, while critics in the Saturday press and the Criterion had castigated it as a mass of filth and obscene literature. There were even accusations that the poet was, variously, a filthy free lover, and guilty of "that horrible sin not to be mentioned among Christians".

Oliver’s family and his literary set would have looked askance at welcoming such a character into their homes, and there was the rumor that Whitman had been dismissed from his government job because the then Secretary of the Interior had found his work offensive. Yet Oliver himself owned a copy of the notorious volume, both the current edition and its 1860 predecessor, and read it often. Whitman's poetry embodied the best ideals of the late Romantic movement admired by that young man, as well as the ground-breaking, fiercely individualist Transcendentalism of more current fashion. Echoing the identity and the voice of the common people, Whitman wrote vividly about passion and death and sexuality which had no place in polite society. His vivid, reckless _'Song of Myself'_ , with its powerful first-person narration, was unlike anything Oliver had ever read.

Elio added, slyly, “Besides, you’ve actually never been to the Stringerses, have you? Isn’t this one of the key principles of the practice of law: in order to properly judge someone’s company, don’t you need direct evidence of the same?”

Neatly trapped, Oliver penned a note to his mother to let her know not to wait up for him for supper, and then he put on his light coat and followed Olenski into the mild spring night.

The Stringers’ large, blowsy stronghold was on the fringes of the Bowery district, with its taverns and music-halls and emerging theatrical clubs, and poorer lodgings housing dress-makers and bird-stuffers and people “in the trades”. Oliver stepped out of the Count’s canary-colored brougham, was ushered through the house’s narrow threshold, and found himself in a crowded hallway that led to an even more crowded drawing-room, filled with people Oliver didn’t recognize and who didn’t recognize him. 

Olenski, though, seemed known in this milieu: he was hailed by several men and not a few women, and he returned their greetings with a natural, unaffected sweetness that reminded Oliver of the young Elio Manson, who had always had a kind word for everyone. Sensing Oliver’s discomfort, Elio paused in the close press of bodies to put his hand through Oliver’s arm. It was a comradely gesture, and a kind one, guiding a soon-to-be relative through unfamiliar waters, and yet the small intimacy in this strange, exciting place sent a thrill through that young man.

“Follow me,” Elio said, and steered Oliver between small closely-scattered tables arranged haphazardly in the drawing room to present him to their hostess.

Mrs Stringers, resplendent in ostrich feathers, was deep in conversation with one of the senior editors of the _New-York Times_ , who was commending her for her courage in hosting the controversial character in her home, and on a Sunday no less.

“Why, I adore talent, and am no stranger to controversy,” the lady responded, as she extended her hand for Olenski to kiss. “My dear Count, always such a pleasure! And look, you’ve brought your professor friend with you, how capital!”

“A professor in another life, perhaps,” Elio returned, laughing, and as others began to descend on Mrs Stringers, he drew Oliver away. 

“Look here, we should try to get a seat before they’re all taken up—“ and Oliver found himself seated at one of the small tables in a nearby corner, with barely enough space for both himself and Olenski to sit comfortably around, upon a wooden bench that creaked alarmingly under their weight. Elio flagged down the Stringers’ butler and commandeered two small beers; he knocked his glass against Oliver’s and then took a long, unrefined pull from it, as if they were two workingmen unwinding in a Bowery bar after a long day’s work.

Oliver glanced at the men and women clustered around the drawing-room’s similarly small tables, deep in conversation. The ladies’ embellishments and bright dresses and bare arms, the men’s suits, the animated tenor of their voices in this mixed company, were quite a departure from old New York’s evening dress code. Oliver recognized some of the musicians and painters whom he met at the Century and one or two of the better theatrical clubs. In one corner, he saw his journalist friend Winslow, who lived on Olenski’s street; Winslow raised a hand, and as Elio waved back, Oliver realized that Winslow had become Elio’s friend as well as his neighbor.

“Are you enjoying yourself?” Elio enquired as he set his glass down and lit a cigarette. Wreathed in smoke, he seemed entirely unselfconscious in this eccentric milieu. 

“I am so far,” Oliver said, smiling, and realized it was true; he might be unfamiliar with this particular drawing-room and its deeply unfashionable company, but he could not deny that there was the scent of freedom in the air, the sense of a throwing off of the shackles of old New York convention in favor of the reckless, passionate new life espoused by the poet they had come here to listen to. Whitman might never be a “gentleman”, but he would have laughed at that label in its face: his was the voice of the people, _these_ people, who comprised that part of New York unknown to the establishment set, and represented all of America.

The great poet, dressed in shabby black, white-haired and frail-looking, with an enormous white beard, was now wheeled into the room by the shoe-polish magnate himself. The men and most of the women rose to their feet, out of respect, or more likely, to get a proper look at the recluse. 

Accompanying Whitman’s entourage was the tall figure of Julius Beaumont, incongruously well-dressed in perfect evening attire; he raised a jaunty salute in Olenski’s direction even as his glance took in Oliver beside the Count. Oliver fancied Beaumont’s eyes narrowed a fraction; then the banker smiled his broad, knowing smile before seating himself at pride of place in an armchair beside Mrs Stringers.

There was another abrupt crush as latecomers piled into the already-crowded room. A slender woman in red, trailing opulent perfume and a too-low neckline, pushed in boldly beside Oliver; in hastily making room for her, Oliver found himself thrust closer to Elio on his other side.

The NYT editor gave an effusive introduction of Whitman, after which Oliver’s friend Winslow read from an essay he had written on the current edition of _Leaves of Grass_ ; which he praised as the definitive commentary on America’s social upheaval in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. 

“This masterpiece, this living work,” Winslow read, in his rich voice, “represents an unsettled cultural workshop, reconstituting the ruins of postwar America. Throughout these poems are images of a coherent country, and at the same time recognizing the cultural fractures across our land and the fragility of the coalition between our sectional and racial factions.” He paused. “This is no more apparent than in the _‘Calamus’_ cluster, poems which address social solidarity and social relations. In this edition, our poet has chosen to foreground these poems by moving them closer to the front of the volume. Along with the _‘Children of Adam’_ cluster, these groupings speak to the growing coherence of our national identity, and of comradeship among strangers from diverse backgrounds, as opposed to the old local, ethnic, and racial allegiances. Our poet recommends a model of new national solidarity, and a quest for a revivified Union.”

Oliver remembered reading Winslow’s article years ago, when he was embarking on his first tentative forays into the poet’s oeuvre: then, he had not appreciated these early articulations of a new post-war American identity. Now, he looked upon Whitman’s bold venture with fresh eyes, and he found it stirred him to the core: this dominant perspective of selfhood, this view of all souls within the New World, the movement from the individual self to the collective body, all encompassed within verses so immediate and real and unaffected that they could have been spoken from Oliver’s own heart. 

Beside him, he heard Elio sigh, and he could see the Count was profoundly moved by this talk of national selfhood; well might he be, as an émigré from the New World to the Old, who had now returned home to discover his own identity in the bosom of his fledgling country.

Winslow soon ceded the floor to the man of the hour. In a high-pitched voice which likely owed its tremulous pitch to ill health, the poet offered some comments on the fourth edition, and the six new poems contained in it. He remarked he was still not entirely content with the volume and might do some further re-arrangement at a later date. He thanked Winslow for his kind words on the book; alas, that those views were not uniformly shared in literary circles and those of the gentrified class who patronized them! 

“When this volume was first published, I ought to have gone directly to the people, read my poems, faced the crowds, got into immediate touch with Tom, Dick, and Harry, instead of waiting to be interpreted. If I’d done that, I'd have had my audience at once, and hang the critics.” Whitman paused to cough into a handkerchief. “Too late for that now, though; my health isn’t what it was.”

“Hang the critics, and the gentrified class!” someone murmured fiercely, and Oliver felt himself flush to his hatline on behalf of his world. Beyond him, he saw Beaumont’s mocking smirk.

Recovering his composure, the poet turned to _Calamus_ ; here, Winslow’s insight was also appreciated. Indeed, Whitman intended to extol the spiritual virtues of comradeship, of brotherhood, between those strangers who had no allegiance in common save for this land of their birth, who were united in their quest for a revived collective cause.

“Of course, the comradely virtues I wrote about were physical as well as spiritual ones, though these days my pleasures are confined to the latter,” the venerable old man said, adding, with something of his youthful acidity, “It wasn’t always the case, though!”

“Gracious, how thrilling!” murmured the lady beside Oliver, and Oliver found himself leaning closer against the warm shoulder of Count Olenski.

The poet apologized in advance for the shortness of the audience, but he was easily fatigued these days, particularly during the colder months. He said he would leave them with a reading. “I had first planned for _'I Sing the Body Electric'_ — one of my more famous works, but I feared its length might overmaster my stamina, and its frank language might have my former employer haul all of us up on profanity charges,” he remarked, to general laughter.

He opened his folio. The raucous room quietened instantly. Into the hush, the maestro read,

“ _When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been receiv'd with plaudits in the capitol,  
still it was not a happy night for me that followed;_  
_And else, when I carous'd, or when my plans were accomplish'd, still I was not happy;_  
_But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health, refresh'd, singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn,_  
_When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the morning light,_  
_When I wander'd alone over the beach, and undressing, bathed, laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise,_  
_And when I thought how my dear friend, my lover, was on his way coming, O then I was happy._ ”

The simple words pierced Oliver: this paean to love and companionship that were more satisfying that professional plaudits; the rhythms, the longing, all like nothing the young man had ever experienced before.

“ _O then each breath tasted sweeter—and all that day my food nourish'd me more—and the beautiful day pass'd well,_  
_And the next came with equal joy—and with the next, at evening, came my friend;_  
_And that night, while all was still, I heard the waters roll slowly continually up the shores,_  
_I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands, as directed to me, whispering, to congratulate me,_  
_For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night,_  
_In the stillness, in the autumn moonbeams, his face was inclined toward me,_  
_And his arm lay lightly around my breast—and that night I was happy.”_

A silence followed the end of these short verses, as well it might, given that they mediated on the love of a young man, and described, in lush, rapturous detail, the joys of sleeping with one’s lover in the moonlight. Oliver sat rooted to his seat as if everything in his body had turned to stone. 

Then the applause rose, hesitant at first and then becoming loud and ringing. Oliver’s heart started beating again, traitorously; as if unlocked by the poet’s reckless, indecent, brilliantly daring verses, the world around him slid back into heightened focus. He could see the flush on the listeners’ cheeks, could smell the excitement in the air, could feel the warmth of Count Olenski’s body where it sat so close beside him that he could almost hear the rhythm of Olenski’s heart. 

“I don’t believe Mr. Whitman ever married, did he?” It was the woman on Oliver’s other side; he had quite forgotten she was there. She added, into his ear, her voice very low, “Although it sounds as if he was no stranger to the joys of a marriage bed.”

It was tremendously discourteous for a gentleman to recoil from a lady, even one quite as obvious as this. Olenski saw the expression on Oliver’s face, and he came to the rescue. 

“How late it is! Our carriage will have been kept waiting. _Désolé_ , madame, but we must take our leave.”

It appeared the poet had the same idea, for he had murmured his own indistinct apologies and permitted himself to be wheeled away from the limelight, by a strapping young fellow who looked strong enough to lift the chair single-handedly. Whitman turned his face up to this associate in order to address him, and Oliver was put promptly in mind of the image in that last verse— of the moonlight, the beach, the rapturous stillness, the lovers together— and a pang of nameless yearning shot through him in response.

Elio’s hand threaded firmly through his arm. Rescuing their coats and making their own apologies, they fled into the night together.

As Olenski’s carriage rattled through the streets of New York, under the light of the new spring moon, Oliver found himself gazing out at this city of his birth with new eyes — as if it had become a wild, unbridled place, on the cusp of throwing off the shackles of its old ways, in order to embrace men from all walks of life and across a united continent.

“Tell me, wasn’t that worth the risk? I admire Whitman’s verses so much; I find him even more talented than Emerson. His voice strikes me as essentially American, authentic and vigorous—” although Elio added that he had recently taken up newer writers such as Paul Bourget, Huysmans, and the Goncourt brothers, names Oliver had only distantly recalled Winslow speaking of with approval.

Elio held forth at some length before subsiding with a laughing “Forgive me, it has been some time before I have attended a poetry reading!”, and Oliver took the opportunity to say, impulsively:

“There’s nothing to forgive; instead, I should thank you. You are changing me.”

Teasingly: “For the better, I hope?”

“Yes,” Oliver said; in the moment, he meant it with all his heart. He continued, fervently, “You challenge the way I see things, how I’ve always seen things — you've opened my eyes to a new world.”

Oliver had been seized with high spirits, buoyed up by notions of this new united America and the grand union of brotherly love, and it took a split second for him to recognize that Olenski had grown sober, contemplating Oliver’s words. 

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Olenski said, at last. “You heard how Mr. Whitman’s verses were considered indecent by polite society, and the man himself deemed immoral. There will always be those who disapprove of change, and within your old New York most of all. It’s as the man himself said…” 

And Elio closed his eyes in the moonlight, and quoted the lines from memory:

“ _I give you fair warning, before you attempt me further,_  
_I am not what you supposed, but far different._  
_Who is he that would become my follower; who would sign himself a candidate for my affections?_

“ _The way is suspicious—the result uncertain, perhaps destructive;_  
_You would have to give up all else—_  
_…The whole past theory of your life, and all conformity to the lives around you, would have to be abandoned;_  
_Therefore release me now, before troubling yourself any further—Let go your hand from my shoulders,_  
_Put me down, and depart on your way._ ”

Oliver caught his breath. He wanted to seize the Count by those slender shoulders in a reverse of the poem’s exhortation, and demand to understand the meaning behind Olenski’s selected poem, which he recognized from the famous _Calamus_ collection. But he could not move, for fear of breaking the spell. 

Olenski continued, musingly, leaning his head back against the velvet of the carriage seat:

“ _Or else, by stealth, in some wood, for trial, or back of a rock, in the open air …_  
_But just possibly with you on a high hill—first watching lest any person, for miles around, approach unawares,_  
_Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea, or some quiet island,_  
_Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you,_  
_With the comrade's long-dwelling kiss, or the new husband's kiss,_  
_For I am the new husband, and I am the comrade._ ”

These startling words burned on Olenski’s lips; Oliver felt them upon his own, the kiss a comrade or a new husband might give, but as sound and breath rather than a caress. His face burned: the revelations of comradely love, of husbandly love, pounded under his skin. Elio plunged on, with words even more startlingly indecent: 

“ _Or, if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing,_  
_Where I may feel the throbs of your heart, or rest upon your hip,_  
_Carry me when you go forth over land or sea;_  
_For thus, merely touching you, is enough—is best,_  
_And thus, touching you, would I silently sleep, and be carried eternally._ ”

Elio’s low voice filled Oliver with all the rough freedom of an epic journey over land and sea, across the undiscovered country of a lover’s body. Almost against his will, Oliver was drawn back to that night where he had imagined Olenski in place of Michele in his arms, and had arrived at his release with the Count’s name on his lips. 

He had told himself then, and after, that this image meant nothing more than loneliness and a misplaced longing for his bride-to-be — but this equivocation seemed to evaporate in Elio’s company, his curly head crowned in moonlight, the sprawl of his lithe form across the carriage seat, their bodies pressed so closely together that Oliver could feel the heat of Elio’s skin through his clothes. 

Elio had fallen silent; his heavy-lidded gaze held Oliver’s. Oliver’s heartbeat was very loud in his ears; he knew that the hairs had risen on the nape of his neck and the tops of his arms, all of him humming and alive to Elio’s presence, a crackling electricity almost as if it had come from _Leaves of Grass_ itself.

Hardly knowing what he was saying, Oliver murmured, “ _Put me down, and depart on your way_? It’s too late for that.” In truth, it had been too late from the time he had set foot in Elio’s little house on West Twenty-Third Street and had the young man play Bach for him.

“Well, then,” Elio said. “In that case, I suppose you’ll just have to carry me with you, as Whitman was carried.”

As he pronounced these words, the canary-colored carriage arrived at Oliver Newland’s door. The lights in his mother’s drawing room were still lit; it would seem that Mrs. Newland had waited up for him after all.

“Good night, cousin,” Elio said, softly, and took Oliver’s hand in his. He raised it to his lips in the European fashion, quite unlike the way Oliver had himself bent over so many ladies’ hands. It was a momentary brush of lips, the most fleeting contact, but it went through Oliver all the same like a touch that seemed almost as indecent as Whitman’s lewdest verses.

Somehow, Oliver managed to find his way out of the carriage; he crossed his threshold into his own house. His head was spinning as if he had drunk too much wine. There was the distinct sensation that, like Whitman, he was carrying Elio with him underneath his clothing, feeling the throb of that astonishing young man upon his hip and against his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Notes on Whitman's life](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Whitman#Health_decline_and_death).
> 
> [The Eagle Street College](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_Street_College) was an informal literary society established in 1885 at the home of James William Wallace in Eagle Street, Bolton, to read and discuss literary works, particularly the poetry of Walt Whitman, (1819–91). Wallace and Johnston corresponded with Whitman and Johnston visited Whitman at his home in Camden, New Jersey. Wallace visited Whitman in 1891. This visit was the subject of a play by Stephen M Hornby called "The Adhesion of Love" which toured the North West in 2019, including to Bolton Museum and the Bolton Socialist Club whose members run the annual 'Whitman Day'. The play speculates that the men in the group were experimenting with different forms of emotional and sexual intimacy with each other and that this was a significant factor in the success of the group and its interest in Walt Whitman.
> 
> Ned Winslow’s essay in this chapter owes much to [Mancuso’s scholarly critique](https://whitmanarchive.org/criticism/current/encyclopedia/entry_24.html#:~:text=The%20fourth%20\(1867\)%20edition%20of,installment%20of%20Whitman's%20Reconstruction%20project.&text=The%201867%20Leaves%20has%20been,evolution%20of%20Leaves%20of%20Grass) of the fourth edition of _Leaves of Grass_.
> 
>  _Calamus_ quotes are from [the Whitman archive](https://whitmanarchive.org/published/LG/1867/index.html), including [WHOEVER you are, holding me now in hand](https://whitmanarchive.org/published/LG/1867/poems/23) and the famous [When I Heard at the Close of the Day](https://whitmanarchive.org/published/LG/1867/poems/29).


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, as ever, to raspberryhunter! Content warnings for cross-dressing and references to offscreen abuse, infidelity, sexual cruelty, and non-major character incest/underage, as well as to period-typical attitudes regarding sexuality, and opposite-gender dress and presentation.

_March, 187__

A week and a half later, Oliver Newland, sitting in abstracted idleness in his private compartment of the office of Letterblair and Low, attorneys at law, was summoned by the head of the firm.

Patrician, white-whiskered Mr. Letterblair, the trusted legal adviser of three generations of New York gentility, sat behind his mahogany desk in evident perplexity. 

"My dear sir—" he always addressed Oliver as "sir"—"Mrs. Manson Mingott sent for me yesterday. Her grand-son, the Count Olenski, wishes to sue his wife for divorce. Certain papers have been placed in my hands. In view of your prospective alliance with the family, I should like to consult you—before taking any further steps."

Oliver felt the blood in his temples. He had not seen the Count Olenski since the poetry reading at the Stringerses; since that time, he had kept the memory of their evening with Whitman’s verses in a secret corner of his mind, to be concealed from the men at the club and his mother’s society and certainly Michele Welland. Indeed, Oliver had not spoken to his bride-to-be about her cousin, as he could not have without alluding to his last dubious encounter with Olenski, and the questionable house in which it had occurred, to say nothing of the unprecedented feelings that had been stirred up by it. 

Oliver had not heard Olenski’s divorce spoken of since Mr. Emerson's first random allusion to it at the beginning of the year, and had dismissed the tale as unfounded gossip. Theoretically, the idea of divorce was as distasteful to him as to Mr. Emerson, and he could not understand why his senior partner should be so keen to draw him into the affair. 

As Mr. Letterblair unlocked a drawer and drew out a packet of papers, Oliver said, "I beg your pardon, sir; but because of that prospective relationship, I wonder if you ought to be consulting one of the other partners instead."

Mr. Letterblair looked surprised and slightly offended. "I respect your scruple, sir; but I believe duty requires you to do as I ask. Indeed, the suggestion is not mine but Mrs. Manson Mingott's and her son's. The family is opposed to the idea, of course, but for some reason the Count is unwavering, and insists on a legal opinion."

With that, the senior partner thrust the packet meaningfully into Oliver’s hand. "Will you oblige me, Mr. Newland, by looking through these papers? Read, and let us discuss thereafter.” 

Oliver withdrew reluctantly with the unwelcome documents and returned to his rooms to read. 

The papers were not voluminous, but they plunged him into an atmosphere in which he choked and spluttered. They consisted mainly of an exchange of letters between Count Olenski's solicitors and a French legal firm retained by his wife’s family. There was also a short letter, in French, from the Count’s uncle, M. Ostrorógsky, to his nephew-in-law, whom he addressed as _Notre petit Elio_. 

After reading, Oliver rose, jammed the papers back into their envelope, and reentered Mr. Letterblair's office.

"Here are the letters, sir. If you wish, I'll see the Count," he said in a constricted voice.

Mr. Letterblair nodded approvingly. He was in the midst of taking his tea; he gestured to Oliver to sit down and help himself, and that young man did so, awkwardly. The bland taste of Letterblair’s customary cucumber sandwiches stuck in his throat. As Oliver coughed, washing it down with a mouthful of tea, his senior partner remarked, "The whole family are against a divorce. And I think rightly."

Oliver instantly felt himself on the other side of the argument. "But why, sir? If there ever was a case—"

"Well—what's the use? She’s there—he's here; the Atlantic's between them. He'll never get back a dollar more of the Manson Mingott money than what the family has voluntarily returned: those damned European marriage settlements take care of that. As things go, the Olenski family has acted generously; they’re letting him keep the title, and prepared even to let him see the child if he wishes it." Letterblair paused. "These matters will be withdrawn if they divorce, and I gather the Count attaches no importance to the money. Therefore, as the family say, why not let well enough alone?"

Oliver had indeed come into Letterblair's office prepared to espouse this very view; but to hear it put into words by this well-fed old man seemed suddenly as if it were the hypocritical voice of a constrained society determined to blind itself against the unpleasant.

"Surely that's for Elio to decide for himself?" he exclaimed.

Letterblair tutted in consternation. "Have you considered the other consequences of the divorce?"

"You mean the threat in the uncle’s letter? It's no more than the vague charge of a notorious reprobate, known for indulging in all manner of extramarital affairs of his own."

"Yes; but it might make some unpleasantness for young Elio should the family decide to defend the suit."

"Unpleasantness—!" said Oliver explosively.

Mr. Letterblair looked at him levelly. "Divorce is always unpleasant. And with allegations of such a nature — of that sin not to be mentioned among Christians, no less? It would be unthinkable. It doesn’t matter if the uncle also indulges; these foreigners will do what they will, and their nobility most of all. But Elio is from a decent family in New York. The Manson Mingotts would have to live with the scandal…”

Oliver swallowed. The brief words in M. Ostrorógsky’s letter burned in his brain, hinting at shady allegations that would bring nothing but disgrace and shame onto Elio’s family, which would one day also be Oliver’s own.

"So, then, you agree with me?" Mr. Letterblair resumed, after a waiting silence. “I may count on you; the Manson Mingotts may count on you; to use your influence against the idea?"

Oliver hesitated. "I’ll need to consult the client first," he said at length. “Let me ask the Count when he can see me.” 

*

Old-fashioned New York dined at seven, and the habit of after-dinner calls, though derided in Oliver's set, still generally prevailed. As the young man strolled up Fifth Avenue from Waverley Place, the long thoroughfare was deserted but for a group of carriages standing before the Dallases’ brownstone (where there was a dinner for the Duke), and the occasional figure of an elderly gentleman ascending a doorstep and disappearing into a gas-lit hall. 

Earlier that day, Olenski had sent his response to the offices of Letterblair and Low, saying that he would be passing the weekend at the van de Luydens’ vast Maryland estates but that he would be home to visitors that evening. 

When Oliver was admitted into that wisteria-covered house, he discovered he was not Olenski’s only evening caller — for on the bench in the hall lay a satin -lined coat and a folded opera hat of dull silk with a gold J. B. on the lining.

That banker stood leaning against the mantelshelf, which was draped with old embroidery held in place by brass candelabra. As Oliver entered, he was smiling and looking down on his host, who sat on a sofa placed at right angles to the chimney, half-reclining on it, his head propped up on his hand, cigarette dangling carelessly from his fingers.

It was not unusual for gentlemen who received after dinner in their own houses to do so in more casual evening attire, but Oliver was surprised to see Olenski in his shirt-sleeves and slippers, over which he was wearing a long, close-fitting robe of brocaded velvet, too luxurious to be a dressing gown and clearly meant to be worn in company, yet carrying with it the unmistakable air of the boudoir. There was something perverse and provocative about the attire that belonged equally in a bedchamber as in a drawing-room, but the effect was undeniably pleasing.

"Lord love us—three whole days in Maryland!" Beaumont was saying in his loud voice as Oliver entered. "It’s in the armpit of nowhere, with nary a thing to do. And you're going to miss the little oyster supper I'd planned for you at Delmonico's next Sunday, with Campanini and Scalchi and a lot of jolly people."

Olenski looked doubtfully from the banker to Oliver. "Ah—that does tempt me! Except for the other evening at Mrs. Struthers's, I've not met a single artist since I've been here."

"What kind of artists? I know one or two painters, very good fellows, that I could bring to see you if you'd allow me," said Oliver.

"Painters? Nonsense, there are no painters in New York," scoffed Beaumont. “New York is dying of dullness, and when I try to liven it up for you, Elio, you go back on me. Come—think better of it! Sunday is your last chance, for Campanini leaves next week for Baltimore and Philadelphia; and I've a private room, and a proper grand Steinway that’s much in much better tune than your little piano here."

"Let me think it over, and write to you tomorrow morning.”

There was a clear note of dismissal in Olenski’s otherwise amiable voice. 

"Why not now?" bristled Beaufort, a man clearly used to getting his way, and Oliver remembered why he disliked the man so intensely.

Elio said, coolly, "It’s too late for such a serious question, and I have still to talk business with Mr. Newland for a little while."

"Ah," Beaumont snapped. With a slight shrug he recovered his composure, and shook the Count’s free hand, so lingeringly that Oliver half-expected the man to bend to kiss it. He added, casually, "I say, Newland, if you can persuade the Count to stay in town, you're included in the supper," before leaving the room with his self-important step.

When he had gone, Elio turned to Oliver with a crooked smile, as if to say that he, too, found Beaumont’s forwardness unbearable, though Oliver knew this was likely wishful thinking on his own part.

“Now, cousin. You sent me a note from your law firm saying you wished to see me; I’m assuming it was indeed a business matter you wanted to discuss, and that it couldn’t wait until I’d returned from Maryland.” 

Oliver took the proffered seat at Olenski’s elbow. "Yes, it’s business. Mr. Letterblair asked me to see you. You see — he wants me to attend to your case."

Elio looked slightly surprised, and then his face brightened. "You mean you can manage it for me? I can talk to you instead of Mr. Letterblair?"

Olenski’s tones of relief touched him, and Oliver’s confidence returned. "Yes, I am here to talk about it," he said.

Elio nodded, and took a long draw of his cigarette. Wreathed in smoke, against the richness of his brocade robe, his young face looked suddenly pale and extinguished, a tragic figure to be pitied as well as admired. Oliver felt a pang in his own sensibly wool-buttressed chest, knowing that they were finally coming down to the hard facts; he found himself as awkward and embarrassed as a schoolboy.

After a pause Olenski broke out with unexpected vehemence: "I want to be free; I want to wipe out the past."

"I understand that."

Elio’s dark eyes glittered in the low light. "Then you'll help me?"

"First—" Oliver hesitated—"perhaps I ought to know a little more."

Olenski seemed surprised. "You know about my wife’s family—my life with them?"

Oliver made a sign of assent. The grounds for divorce had been couched in the blandest technical terms in the legal correspondence: false imprisonment, abuse, cruelty, gross indecency.

Elio said, very low, “You know, I don’t blame Marzia. She wasn’t even sixteen when her parents died and her uncle Ostrorógsky came to stay. But she didn’t want my help; she just wanted a husband who would do as her uncle said. Ostrorógsky could do whatever he liked to anyone, including to me. When I told them I’d had enough, they locked me in my room for months before I managed to escape.”

Oliver suppressed a shiver, and Elio demanded, fiercely, "So—then what more is needed? I’m sure cruelty and abuse isn’t tolerated in this country."

Oliver couldn’t meet Olenski’s gaze. “It’s not just an issue of New York law,” he said, at last. “You were married in France, and your wife’s lawyers assert there are no grounds under French law for divorce. Besides, the conduct of another person wouldn’t ordinarily constitute sufficient legal basis, and your wife has said she was unaware that her uncle had laid a finger on you.” His throat was desperately tight; clearing it, he said, “It might be different if you yourself were prepared to assert adultery.”

Olenski let out a sigh, and put his hand to his forehead. “She will deny it as well, of course,” he muttered. “She tells herself she loves him; she’ll want to keep him with her at all costs, and the boy. Their boy.”

At first, Oliver didn’t understand—this matter wasn’t referenced in Letterblair’s papers— but when he finally understood what Elio was saying, he felt as if all his breath had been knocked out of him.

“The child isn’t yours, but _Ostrorógsky’s_?”

Elio’s voice rasped. "It wouldn’t have mattered— I loved her, I would have loved her child, too—but she only ever wanted one thing from me. And Ostrorógsky wanted..." He swallowed thickly. “He wanted _everything_. I had to get away.”

The silence between them drew out, awful and echoing; Oliver found his head was spinning. These terrible revelations were abominable, unheard of even in books, and then there was still the spectre of Ostrorógsky’s letter grimacing hideously between them. That letter filled only half a page, and was just what he had described it in speaking of it to Mr. Letterblair: scandalous insinuations from a man who, Oliver had just learned, had abused his niece as badly as he had abused that niece’s young husband. 

But how much truth was behind it? Only that estranged husband could tell.

 _Our little Elio_ , the letter had said. _We did not expect you to tire of us so quickly. We suppose Philippe is a comely man, and learned in Shakespeare and Dante, the language of your people, which our poorly educated household cannot match. However: pleasures of the flesh are fleeting, but you will discover that family and duty are forever. Come home to your loving wife and child and uncle._

"I've looked through the papers you gave to Mr. Letterblair," Oliver said at length. "Of course you know that if your wife — that is, if her uncle — chooses to fight the case, as he threatens to—"

"Yes—?"

Oliver said miserably, "He can say things—things that might be unpl—might be disagreeable to you. To say them publicly, so that they would get about, and harm you even if—"

" _If—?_ "

"I mean: no matter how unfounded they were."

Elio paused for a long interval; so long that, not wishing to keep his eyes on that tragic face with its downcast eyelids, Oliver fixed his gaze on Elio’s free hand, the one resting on his knee, with its elegant pianist’s fingers, upon which, Oliver noticed for the first time, a wedding ring did not appear.

"What harm could such accusations, even made publicly, do to me here, compared with what I’ve been forced to endure?"

Oliver was reminded of the charges levelled against Whitman, for daring to write about the love of one man for another, and the poet’s dismissal from employment upon New York’s moral disapprobation. Once again, he heard Letterblair’s outraged voice, decrying _that unthinkable sin not to be mentioned among Christians_.

He answered, in a voice that sounded, regrettably, in his ears like Mr. Letterblair's: "New York society is a very small world compared with the one you've lived in. And it's ruled, in spite of appearances, by a few people with—well, rather old-fashioned ideas."

Elio said nothing, and Oliver continued: "Our notions about marriage and divorce are particularly old-fashioned. Our legislation allows for divorce—our social customs don't. And both our legislation and our social customs don’t allow for…" He had to take a deep breath. “They frown on intimacy outside the marital bed, especially intimacy that isn’t between a man and a woman.”

"Do they?" It was barely a whisper. Oliver risked a look at Olenski’s face, and saw it had gone bone-white.

"Well—especially if the man — or a woman, too, of course — however injured, however irreproachable, has exposed himself by any unconventional action to—to offensive insinuations— concerning someone other than his wife, another woman—or, worse, another _man_ —"

Elio drooped his curly head a little lower, and Oliver waited again, intensely hoping for a flash of indignation, or at least some form of denial. None came.

A little travelling clock ticked, and a log broke in two and sent up a shower of sparks. The whole hushed and brooding room seemed to be waiting silently with Oliver.

"Yes," Elio murmured at length, "that's what my family tells me."

Oliver winced a little. "They just want to spare you—"

"I know what it is they want to spare," Elio said slowly. "And you, for you’ll be marrying into that family soon enough — do you also take their view?"

Oliver stood up at this, walked across the room to stare one of the Italian pictures against the old red damask, and returned irresolutely to Elio’s side. How could he say: _Yes, if what that monster hints at is true, and you had a romantic liaison with the secretary, or if you've no way of disproving it?_

He looked down into the fire, and said, instead, slowly, "What should you gain that would compensate for the possibility—the certainty—of a lot of beastly talk?"

"But my freedom—is that nothing?" 

For an instant, Oliver’s heart swelled at Elio’s heartfelt cry, as tantalizing as the liberated spirits they had partaken of two Sundays ago, with Whitman and his call to brotherly love. Then in the next instant, Oliver realized that the charge in the letter must be true: that Elio had indeed become besotted with this secretary, this _Philippe_ , and was even now longing to return to his side. 

Ugly emotion bubbled through Oliver, making him say, impatiently, "But aren't you as free as air, as it is? You have your liberty here in New York. Think of the public, the newspapers—how vile they were to Whitman, how much more vile would they be to the Manson Mingotts’ grandson. It's all stupid and narrow and unjust—but one can't make over society."

"No," Elio agreed, and his tone was so faint that Oliver felt sudden remorse for his own unkind thoughts.

"You have to understand: here, individual freedoms are nearly always sacrificed to what is supposed to be collective duty. It’s all about society, family, obligation, morality—the children, if there are any," Oliver rambled on, all too aware of the flush that had stained his own cheeks. "It's my business to help you to see these things. If I didn't show you honestly how you would be judged, it wouldn't be fair of me, would it?"

Elio said slowly: "No; it wouldn't be fair."

The fire had crumbled down to greyness. Olenski rose and wound it up, and then returned to Oliver’s side, but did not sit down.

Oliver, sensing dismissal, rose to his feet.

"Very well; let me reconsider my earlier instructions," said Elio abruptly, turning wide, desolate eyes to his. 

The blood rushed to Oliver’s cheeks; taken aback by the suddenness of Elio’s surrender, he caught the two pale hands fervently in his. "I want to help you," he said, his voice sounding completely unlike himself.

"You have already helped, cousin. Good night to you."

Hardly knowing what he was doing, Oliver bent and laid his lips on Olenski’s hands, which were cold and lifeless. The Count drew them away, and Oliver turned to the door, found his coat and hat under the faint gas-light of the hall, and plunged out into the mild spring night that had suddenly become bitterly cold once again.

*

It was a crowded night at Wallack's theatre, as it always was when the _"The Loves of Amadour and Florida"_ was playing, with Harry Montague and Ada Dyas as the titular lovers. 

Oliver wasn’t overly fond of this particular melodrama, which Irish playwright Dion Boucicault had adapted from the tenth story of Margaret of Navarre’s 16th century _Heptameron_ , but there was one scene in particular that held him, as well as the entire house, from floor to ceiling. 

Amadour, that clever knight from Toledo, played by dashing English actor Harry Montague, had been covertly in love for years with the beautiful and virtuous Florida, to the extent of serving in the personal armies of Florida’s betrothed, the son of the Fortunate Infante, and marrying Florida’s best friend, in order to have the opportunity to be close to she whom he pined for with a burning passion. Florida, played by Miss Dyas, finally confronted the young knight, wrongly believing he had been wooing another, and poor Amadour found himself on the precipice of confessing his secret.

Framed under the arches of Florida’s drawing-room, a backdrop bravely painted to resemble whitewashed Aragonese stone, Montague said to his lady, "My dear, I beseech you to advise me which of the two is better: to speak, or to die?"

"I shall always advise my friends to speak," came the hesitant reply; "because while words are dangerous things, made from thought, and breath, from death there can be no return."

The paramour cried, "You must promise me, then, that not only you will not be angry when I speak, but even that you will not give way to surprise until I have laid my whole mind open to you?"

"I promise I will not be angry with you for merely doing as I have advised," replied Florida, slowly, "only have a care, sir: for if you should choose to speak, and surprise me, that surprise may never be undone, nor the words unspoken and mind unrevealed, until well might you wish for death."

The tormented lover bowed his head, and murmured, “Why, then, I will not speak—,” and Florida turned away in despair, resting her arms against a mantel-shelf on the far end of the stage. As she bowed her face in her hands, the ends of her long lace shawl trailed down from her shoulders like sorrow. 

On the threshold of the room, her wooer paused to look at her; then he stole back, lifted the hem of her shawl, kissed it fervently, and left the room without her hearing him or changing her attitude. On this silent parting, the curtain fell.

It was always for the sake of that particular scene that Oliver Newland went to see _"The Loves of Amadour and Florida"_. He thought the adieux of Montague and Ada Dyas as fine as anything he had ever seen Croisette and Bressant do in Paris; in its reticence, its inarticulate sorrow, it moved him more than many famous histrionic outpourings, and indeed more than the rest of Boucicault’s play.

On the evening in question, the little scene acquired an added poignancy by reminding Oliver—he could not have said why—of his leave-taking from Count Olenski after their confidential talk ten days earlier.

After that turbulent evening, Olenski had written from Maryland to notify his grandmother that he had reconsidered the idea of seeking a divorce, news which brought infinite relief of the Manson Mingott clan.

"Clever boy: I was sure you would manage it," Mrs. Manson Mingott had told Oliver triumphantly. Even taciturn Mr. Welland had had a kind word for his son-in-law, just before the Wellands departed for St. Augustine, where they always spent the earliest part of spring. Michele had always participated dutifully in this family tradition, and the following year’s scheduled nuptials with Oliver had not sufficed to exclude her; as a result, Oliver had been left to his own devices in New York for the last week and counting.

The memory of his last talk with Elio came rushing back so vividly to Oliver that, as the curtain fell on the parting of the two actors, his eyes filled with tears, and he stood up to leave the theatre.

In doing so, he turned to the side of the house behind him, and saw the gentleman of whom he was thinking seated in a box with Reginald Chivers and one or two other men. 

Oliver had not spoken with Elio alone since their evening together, and the Count had left for Maryland, from which he had now, and obviously, returned. Their eyes met. Elio rose from his seat, murmured something in Reginald’s ear, and left the box.

Oliver lingered at the theatre’s exit. In no time, Elio appeared in the red damask walls of the hallway, grappling with his coat and hat. He hurried across the lobby toward Oliver, his step light and confident, reaching an ungloved hand for Oliver’s arm. 

“I didn’t imagine I’d see you here,” Oliver said, awkwardly. 

“Nor I. In fact, I didn’t mean to come to the theatre at all tonight; I have a nine o’clock engagement, so I told cousin Reggie that I would only stay for the first act.”

“It’s the best act, and mostly downhill after,” Oliver confessed. “I always leave the theatre then, after the farewell scene, and I was going to do that tonight in order to take the image away with me.”

“I can see why,” Elio said, thoughtfully. “So what happens in the story? Does the knight die, because he didn’t speak?”

“Oh, he does speak, eventually. He dies, too, though, so I’m not sure it was a better decision in the end.” Oliver eyed Elio. “As for your engagement, do you have your carriage here, or should I fetch you one?”

“I do.” Elio paused, then said, impulsively: “Why don’t you come with me? I’ve agreed to let Julius show me a new club in the Bowery which he has invested in; he says it’s frequented by artists and all manner of exciting people.”

Oliver narrowly bit back his first response. He was vaguely aware that the Bowery’s reputation had of late been remediated by a proliferation of reputable businesses, though he fancied Julius Beaumont’s custom would do little to assist. And Oliver’s irritation over Beaumont’s persistent presence in Olenski’s life was ameliorated by his anticipation of Beaumont’s own annoyance at discovering that Elio had invited Oliver on what was undoubtedly intended to be a private encounter.

This new club was called _The Slide_ , a beer-garden on Bleecker Street several blocks beyond the Stringers’ house. Its doors opened into a cramped lobby, which descended into a basement filled with dozens of small tables, occupied even at this relatively early hour by groups of men and some women. The walls were hung with velvet curtains and music-hall posters, and the chrome lamps were dimly lit. In one corner of the room ran a long, polished counter, from behind which drinks were served, putting Oliver in mind of dens of iniquity in Paris or Berlin. The air was filled with laughter, the smell of cheap cigarettes, and tunes banged out on an old piano.

“This doesn’t seem like Beaumont’s style at all,” Oliver muttered, as he allowed Elio to steer him to a table in a corner. “It’s the sort of dive to which slumming students would bring their friends from out of town, to shock them over how liberal the big city is.”

“You sound as if you’re speaking from experience,” Elio grinned. He himself looked surprisingly entirely at home in this shady place; Oliver was reminded he’d been as comfortable at Mrs. Stringers’. 

“Only in Paris, never in New York,” Oliver took pains to assure him; indeed, until this night he had not known places such as this existed in his city, although he had of course vague notions that they must. 

“Well, perhaps Julius thought there would be an opening to bring Paris to New York,” Elio remarked, and Oliver felt the uncharitable notion prick him: that such down-at-heel places clearly seemed as familiar to Elio as they must be to Julius Beaumont. 

Elio raised his hand, and when a waiter appeared with a tray, Oliver received a tremendous shock. The figure who approached them, in a sumptuously feminine evening dress, wearing an elaborate wig, was a man. He wore streetwalker’s rouge on his lips and cheeks, but when he spoke to Elio about the drinks, he did so in refined accents that would not have been out of place in Oliver’s own club on Madison Avenue. 

Oliver looked around the room with new eyes. The seated figures he had mistaken for women were actually men in women’s costume. They were brazenly clasping hands with their male companions, in the way that courtesans in Paris would make free to do; and the men were clasping back, and lighting their cigarettes, and flirting and courting with each other as other men would do with women. He heard a dozen carefree voices lifted in laughter and banter and song, in a variety of accents: cultured and upper-crust, broad and working-class, high-pitched and low, and all male.

Oliver looked back at Elio, his heart beating quickly. Was this the melting pot of class and diversity and irreverence that Whitman had espoused — had it arrived in New York under his nose, and caught him unaware?

“Does this remind you of Paris?” Elio enquired, sipping his beer. 

“New York isn’t Paris,” Oliver said, conscious he was endorsing views espoused by his mother. “And Beaumont is too shrewd a businessman to believe most New Yorkers would think so.” 

Elio shrugged. “Perhaps Julius has a keener sense of what New Yorkers will think— or permit — than our family does,” he said, lifting his candid eyes to Oliver’s: placing their last, difficult conversation squarely between them, with everything they had and had not said.

Oliver struggled to speak past the sudden thickness in his throat. “Do you believe yourself ill-advised, about what our society would accept?” he asked. “Do you see men like these — men in women’s clothing, men ‘making love’ to other men — do you see them walking down Fifth Avenue together in broad daylight? Do you think I’m wrong, and that Julius Beaumont —” 

He couldn’t make himself finish his sentence. Instead, he threw his drink angrily down his throat. The thin, cheap liquor burned as it went down and did nothing to quench the urgent churning in his gut. As he set his glass down, he found his hand was trembling.

A moment, and then long, pianist’s fingers wound themselves around his, stilling them. 

“I don’t think you’re wrong,” Elio said, quietly, his gaze holding Oliver’s. “I’ve agreed to do as you asked, haven’t I? Don’t think I don’t trust you, cousin. Only…” He colored, and then looked away. “Only, I wish I wasn’t afraid. Sometimes I do think it’s easier to die than to speak.”

Oliver’s heart gave a treacherous leap; suddenly, it seemed almost too big for his chest. Elio’s hand was very warm; he clasped it fervently in both of his.

“Elio, what is it? Is there something you’re afraid of saying?”

The Count stayed silent, worrying his lower lip with his teeth, a boyish gesture with nothing flirtatious about it — the same natural, unguarded motion occasionally made by Michele, a girl quite incapable of coquetry. And yet, at that instant, Oliver desired nothing more than to capture that lower lip with his own, and to take Elio’s mouth in a first, searing kiss. 

_The comrade's long-dwelling kiss, or the new husband's kiss,_  
_For I am the new husband, and I am the comrade._

Oliver struggled to thrust aside Whitman’s words and base temptation. "Elio, if I'm really to be a help to you—if you really want me to believe you trust me—you must tell me what's wrong, tell me what you’re afraid of.”

For long moments, Elio was silent; still looking away from him, his hand still and indecisive in Oliver’s. A light pulse fluttered in the corner of his throat above the line of wing-tipped collar. Between one heartbeat and the next, Oliver imagined him slowly turning his head to raise his tear-stained face into the light, drawing Oliver close, and lifting that lush, bitten mouth in surrender.

While Oliver waited, soul and body throbbing with the miracle to come, he heard someone clearing his throat.

He turned around, and was confronted with the proprietorial gaze of Julius Beaumont.

Elio drew in a shaken breath, and his other hand came up to clutch around both Oliver’s own. “Julius,” he said, and Oliver felt the acid well derisively up from his gut into this throat. 

So that was it — here was what Elio was afraid of, glaring at both of them in the face. The Count had found himself drawn to this degenerate man, in the same way as he’d been drawn to Ostrorógsky‘s secretary, had agreed to visit this scandalous, libertine milieu that Beaumont dangled in front of him like temptation. He was using Oliver as a proxy of his own better angels, to guard him from the pull of his own corrupt desires.

Oliver was wrong to have thought of Olenski as a tragic, innocent figure, courageously striving for freedom in the vein of Tennyson’s Ulysses and Whitman’s bold heroes, when what he was was _this_.

He released himself from Elio, and rose to his feet to hold his chair out to the banker.

"Here, Beaumont—have my seat; I must be off,” he said. “The Count Olenski asked me to keep him company until you arrived here, and now here you are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [French divorce laws in the 1870s.](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loi_autorisant_le_divorce_en_France)   
>  [American divorce laws in the 1870s.](https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704901104575423341295531582)
> 
> The famous tale of the knight that would speak or die, which features in various pivotal CMBYN scenes, is taken from Book 10 of Margaret of Navarre’s Heptameron, entitled [_The Loves of Amadour and Florida_](https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/navarre/heptameron/heptameron.html#N10). I’ve made it into a play and shoehorned it into the story in place of Wharton’s cheesy soap opera [_The Shaughran_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shaughraun). 
> 
> On gay Gilded Age New York, I’ve used as my references [The Gilded Hour](https://thegildedhour.com/gay-culture-in-19th-century-new-york-city/), which references prominent Bowery nightclub _The Slide_ and its patrons, Chapter 2 of [The NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project’s Historic Context Statement for LGBT History in New York City](www.nyclgbtsites.org), and [George Chauncey’s Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890–1940]](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-gilded-age-and-progressive-era/article/george-chaunceys-gay-new-york-a-view-from-25-years-later/017BE3970C6753BDDA182F1A06BC71D4), which references Whitman, and states:
> 
> _”In the 1870s, there were establishments that were known for their “bohemian” atmosphere, like the subterranean Charles Pfaff’s Beer Cellar that was staffed by effeminate men. It was popular with gay men as well as with straight men and drew a crowd of writers and artists. (Several years earlier Walt Whitman even featured the spot in an unfinished poem: “The vault at Pfaffs where the drinkers and laughers meet to eat and drink and carouse…”).”_


End file.
